Legal Mobilization within the Bureaucracy: Disability Rights and the Implementation of Antidiscrimination Law in Sweden

• Author: Aude Lejeune
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12077

Legal Mobilization within the Bureaucracy: Disability

Rights and the Implementation of Antidiscrimination

Law in Sweden

AUDE LEJEUNE

This article argues that the analysis of legal mobilization needs to give more attention to the

state and its relationship with social movements in order to examine how the state either sustains

social movements’ demands or is a f‌ield of contention for those demands. Focusing on how

disability bureaucrats and activists mobilize antidiscrimination law in Sweden, this article shows

that two main factors shape legal mobilization within the bureaucracy and alter the state’s

ability to become a legal mobilization actor: (1) the institutional relationships between social

movement organizations and government agencies and (2) the prof‌iles and careers of

bureaucrats and activists. It concludes by suggesting several lines for further research on law and

social movements in nonpluralist countries.

INTRODUCTION

For more than four decades, sociolegal scholars have analyzed the mobilization of the law

by social movements.Research has emphasizednot only how legal strategiescan contribute

to producing social change but also how legal discourse frames social movements’ claims.

This article arguesthat, in the analysis of legalmobilization, more attentionneeds to be giv-

en to the role of the state and its relationship with social movements in order to examine

how the state can be a site of legal mobilization and how, in such cases, it either supports

social movements’ demands or is a f‌ield of contention for those demands. In order to

explore the relationship between law,social movements, and the state,as well as the role of

the state as a legal mobilization actor, this article focuses on how disability activists and

bureaucrats of theDiscrimination Ombudsman in Swedenmobilize antidiscrimination law

to promote theinclusion and full participationof disabled people in the labormarket.

This article addresses two main research questions. First, how do the institutional rela-

tionships between state agencies and social movement organizations, which change over

time, inf‌luence or alter the ability of the bureaucracy to become a legal mobilization

actor? Second, how do the prof‌iles and careers of bureaucrats and activists, especially

Previous versions of this article were presented at the Council for European Studies Conference in 2015 in a

workshop on “Legal Mobilization in Europe” and at the Disability Conference “2005–2015: Quel anniversaire

pour les personnes handicap

ees?,” organized by Pierre-Yves Baudot and Yohann Aucante. I gratefully

acknowledge the participants, Anne Revillard and Anna-Maria Marshall, for their useful comments on earlier

drafts. I am also grateful to the researchers of the SCORE center at the University of Stockholm for our discus-

sions and to the University of Lille for f‌inancial support. I would like to thank the journal’s anonymous

reviewers for the very useful comments that helped me to improve this article.

Address correspondence to: Aude Lejeune, CNRS Faculty Research Fellow, University of Lille, 1 place

D

eliot, 59000 Lille, France. Telephone: (33) 320 90 74 51; E-mail: Aude.lejeune@ulg.ac.be.

LAW & POLICY, Vol. 39, No. 3, July 2017 ISSN 0265–8240

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doi: 10.1111/lapo.12077

those who have moved from nongovernment to government organizations, shape their

everyday work with the law and inf‌luence the provision of government services?

To answer these questions, this article suggests bringing the state back into the law and

social movement literature (Part II). It also explains the case selection procedure and the

relevance of examining legal mobilization in a neocorporatist country and sets out the

methodology and data collection technique used (Part III). It then recounts the history of

Swedish disability policy over the past twenty years from a diachronic perspective, exam-

ining how the government agency that has been in charge of antidiscrimination and equal

opportunity during this period has cooperated or clashed with the disability movement

and how these historical changes in the relationship between bureaucrats and disability

activists have shaped the agency’s legal strategies (Part IV). The article then discusses the

role of the bureaucracy in legal mobilization. It argues that there are two main factors at

play: (1) the institutional relationships that the government agency establishes with civil

society organizations; and (2) the networks and identities of the bureaucrats (Part V). It

concludes by suggesting several lines for further research on law and social movements in

nonpluralist countries.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: LAW, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, AND THE STATE

I will brief‌ly present the literature on law and social movements and explain the benef‌it of

bringing the state back into the analysis of legal mobilization (Part II.A). I will then sug-

gest adopting a broad def‌inition of legal mobilization that includes recourse to legal strat-

egies outside the courtroom and pays attention to one specif‌ic stage of policy making:

when bureaucrats put the policy into action and implement the law (Part II.B).

BRINGING THE STATE BACK IN

For more than four decades, sociolegal scholars have analyzed the mobilization of the

law by social movements (Barnes and Burke 2012; Barclay, Jones, and Marshall 2011;

Vanhala 2011; Zemans 1983; Black 1973). Research has emphasized how legal strategies

can be social movement tactics (Burstein 1991) and can contribute to producing social

change (Isra€

el 2009; Scheingold 2004). Studies have also shown how legal discourse pro-

duces cultural meaning (Ewick and Silbey 1998) and thus frames social movements’

claims (McCann 1994, 2006; Marshall 2003).

From this perspective, sociolegal scholars have examined the structural and cultural

factors that inf‌luence recourse to legal strategies. They have developed the concept of

legal opportunity structure, which stipulates that various criteria—such as available legal

resources, legal stock, or the receptiveness of judges—determine the choice to litigate

(Andersen 2006; Epp 1998). Other scholars have shown that these structural explanations

are not enough to understand how and why activists and lawyers decide to mobilize the

law and take legal action (Cichowski 2013; Hilson 2002). They have suggested that socio-

legal studies should pay closer attention to the agency of lawyers and activists rather than

focus solely on structural factors (Vanhala 2012; Sarat and Scheingold 2005). According

to these scholars, by mobilizing the law, lawyers and activists translate people’s experien-

ces into legal categories (Bumiller 1987), make a cause visible to the public (Sarat and

Scheingold 2006), empower marginalized groups (Engel and Munger 2003), or reinforce a

movement’s collective identity (Vanhala 2011; Polletta and Jasper 2001). In short, these

works suggest that one should take into account the diversity of lawyers’ and activists’

prof‌iles and careers, their professional and personal commitments, and the meanings they

238 LAW & POLICY July 2017

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