Rights and Retrenchment

Rights and Retrenchment
Author: Stephen B. Burbank
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2017-04-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 110818409X

This groundbreaking book contributes to an emerging literature that examines responses to the rights revolution that unfolded in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Using original archival evidence and data, Stephen B. Burbank and Sean Farhang identify the origins of the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law in the first Reagan Administration. They then measure the counterrevolution's trajectory in the elected branches, court rulemaking, and the Supreme Court, evaluate its success in those different lawmaking sites, and test key elements of their argument. Finally, the authors leverage an institutional perspective to explain a striking variation in their results: although the counterrevolution largely failed in more democratic lawmaking sites, in a long series of cases little noticed by the public, an increasingly conservative and ideologically polarized Supreme Court has transformed federal law, making it less friendly, if not hostile, to the enforcement of rights through lawsuits.

No Day in Court

No Day in Court
Author: Sarah L. Staszak
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199399034

We are now more than half a century removed from height of the rights revolution, a time when the federal government significantly increased legal protection for disadvantaged individuals and groups, leading in the process to a dramatic expansion in access to courts and judicial authority to oversee these protections. Yet while the majority of the landmark laws and legal precedents expanding access to justice remain intact, less than two percent of civil cases are decided by a trial today. What explains this phenomenon, and why it is so difficult to get one's day in court? No Day in Court examines the sustained efforts of political and legal actors to scale back access to the courts in the decades since it was expanded, largely in the service of the rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. Since that time, for political, ideological, and practical reasons, a multifaceted group of actors have attempted to diminish the role that courts play in American politics. Although the conventional narrative of backlash focuses on an increasingly conservative Supreme Court, Congress, and activists aiming to constrain the developments of the Civil Rights era, there is another very important element to this story, in which access to the courts for rights claims has been constricted by efforts that target the "rules of the game: " the institutional and legal procedures that govern what constitutes a valid legal case, who can be sued, how a case is adjudicated, and what remedies are available through courts. These more hidden, procedural changes are pursued by far more than just conservatives, and they often go overlooked. No Day in Court explores the politics of these strategies and the effect that they have today for access to justice in the U.S.

Rights and Retrenchment

Rights and Retrenchment
Author: Stephen B. Burbank
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2017-04-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107136997

This book shows how an increasingly conservative Supreme Court has undermined the enforcement of rights through strategies rejected by Congress.

Dismantling the Welfare State?

Dismantling the Welfare State?
Author: Paul Pierson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1995-09-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1316583538

This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state's durability and for the few occasions where each government was able to achieve significant cutbacks. The programmes of the modern welfare state - the 'policy legacies' of previous governments - generally proved resistant to reform. Hemmed in by the political supports that have developed around mature social programmes, conservative opponents of the welfare state were successful only when they were able to divide the supporters of social programmes, compensate those negatively affected, or hide what they were doing from potential critics. The book will appeal to those interested in the politics of neo-conservatism as well as those concerned about the development of the modern welfare state. It will attract readers in the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy.

Retrenchment Law in South Africa

Retrenchment Law in South Africa
Author: Rochelle Le Roux
Publisher:
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2016
Genre: Downsizing of organizations
ISBN: 9780409124163

"Retrenchment Law in South Africa provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of retrenchment law in South Africa. The author provides new, critical insight into the interplay between case law and legislative developments. The 2014 amendments to the Labour Relations Act are considered as well as the potential unintended consequences of these amendments (such as the impact of ss 198 A (b) (ii) and s 198 B (5) on an employer's ability to retrench). The book examines the meaning of the term operational requirements with extensive reference to case law and use of creative examples and hypotheticals. Retrenchment Law in South Africa covers complex issues such as bumping and timing periods in the case of large-scale retrenchments. The author provides useful international comparisons in particular the ILO convention and the EUs Directive on Collective Redundancies. Practitioners and academics will benefit from this useful examination of retrenchment law. Who is the book aimed at? Labour law practitioners, post graduate students, union officials, commissioners arbitrators, HR Directors and judges."--Publisher's website.

Austerity, Retrenchment and the Welfare State

Austerity, Retrenchment and the Welfare State
Author: Bent Greve
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2020-01-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1789903718

Are we living in an age of permanent austerity? In this insightful book, Bent Greve provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of welfare states since 2000, exploring the ways by which austerity can be measured and quantified. Through detailed comparative analysis between states, this book dissects the implementation of economic retrenchment, its extent and impact in Europe.

The Future of Economic and Social Rights

The Future of Economic and Social Rights
Author: Katharine G. Young
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 711
Release: 2019-04-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108418139

Captures significant transformations in the theory and practice of economic and social rights in constitutional and human rights law.

To Fulfill These Rights

To Fulfill These Rights
Author: Amaka Okechukwu
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 023154474X

In 2014 and 2015, students at dozens of colleges and universities held protests demanding increased representation of Black and Latino students and calling for a campus climate that was less hostile to students of color. Their activism recalled an earlier era: in the 1960s and 1970s, widespread campus protest by Black and Latino students contributed to the development of affirmative action and open admissions policies. Yet in the decades since, affirmative action has become a magnet for conservative backlash and in many cases has been completely dismantled. In To Fulfill These Rights, Amaka Okechukwu offers a historically informed sociological account of the struggles over affirmative action and open admissions in higher education. Through case studies of policy retrenchment at public universities, she documents the protracted—but not always successful—rollback of inclusive policies in the context of shifting race and class politics. Okechukwu explores how conservative political actors, liberal administrators and legislators, and radical students have defined, challenged, and transformed the racial logics of colorblindness and diversity through political struggle. She highlights the voices and actions of the students fighting policy shifts in on-the-ground accounts of mobilization and activism, alongside incisive scrutiny of conservative tactics and messaging. To Fulfill These Rights provides a new analysis of the politics of higher education, centering the changing understandings and practices of race and class in the United States. It is timely and important reading at a moment when a right-wing Department of Justice and Supreme Court threaten the end of affirmative action.

The Litigation State

The Litigation State
Author: Sean Farhang
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2010-08-02
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1400836786

Of the 1.65 million lawsuits enforcing federal laws over the past decade, 3 percent were prosecuted by the federal government, while 97 percent were litigated by private parties. When and why did private plaintiff-driven litigation become a dominant model for enforcing federal regulation? The Litigation State shows how government legislation created the nation's reliance upon private litigation, and investigates why Congress would choose to mobilize, through statutory design, private lawsuits to implement federal statutes. Sean Farhang argues that Congress deliberately cultivates such private lawsuits partly as a means of enforcing its will over the resistance of opposing presidents. Farhang reveals that private lawsuits, functioning as an enforcement resource, are a profoundly important component of American state capacity. He demonstrates how the distinctive institutional structure of the American state--particularly conflict between Congress and the president over control of the bureaucracy--encourages Congress to incentivize private lawsuits. Congress thereby achieves regulatory aims through a decentralized army of private lawyers, rather than by well-staffed bureaucracies under the president's influence. The historical development of ideological polarization between Congress and the president since the late 1960s has been a powerful cause of the explosion of private lawsuits enforcing federal law over the same period. Using data from many policy areas spanning the twentieth century, and historical analysis focused on civil rights, The Litigation State investigates how American political institutions shape the strategic design of legislation to mobilize private lawsuits for policy implementation.