Legal mobilization in the European constitutional network - the case of organized interests in the Federal Republic of Germany

• Applicant: Dr. Stefan Thierse
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 517912137

Under the banner of juridification, legal mobilization and strategic litigation, a comprehensive body of literature situated at the intersection of legal studies and political science deals with the question under what conditions and with what effect the law is mobilized in order to influence political decisions. Depending on the discipline, the focus is either on social movements and civil society organizations, interest groups or individual citizens. This project addresses the following question: With what objectives and in what form do organized interests use the legal system? The contribution to the state of the art is threefold. First, the project adopts a comparative perspective that encompasses both interest groups and nongovernmental organizations as well as businesses. Second, a particular focus is on the importance of a recourse to fundamental rights as part of a strategy of judicial interest mediation. Third – and relatedly – the project looks into the consequences for legal mobilization arising from the structure of fundamental rights protection in the European constitutional network: In this network, the fundamental rights enshrined in the national constitution are complemented by two additional fundamental rights catalogues that allow individuals and organizations to derive entitlements and substantiate infringements against fundamental rights: the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. At the same time, there are mutually independent, but interdependent supreme and constitutional courts in charge of evaluating alleged fundamental rights violations. The project employs a mixed-methods design. In a first step, explorative interviews with representatives from 50 organizations in the Federal Republic of Germany serve to analyze the intentions, goals and internal deliberations behind legal mobilization and which situational, contextual factors have a bearing on strategic considerations. In a second step, a survey among 3500 organizations will be conducted that sheds light on the relative significance of litigation, the relevance of fundamental rights claims associated with legal mobilization, and the experience with legal disputes. Adopting an actor-centered perspective on the phenomenon of legal mobilization that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, the project links interest group research and the interdisciplinary research on law and politics and yields novel insights into the significance of law in connection with democratic interest mediation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants