Agents of Justice

How the American Bureaucracy Mobilizes Private Lawsuits to Make Policy Work

Quinn Mulroy (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

280 Seiten

2025
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
9780190942588 (ISBN)

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In the last half century since the height of the rights revolution - a period marked by significant rights expansions but limited government capacity to enforce them - efforts to defend individuals' and communities' rights have hinged on the effectiveness of the "litigation state:" a fragile but sometimes powerful mode of governance that relies on private litigants and their attorneys, rather than agencies, to enforce the laws of the land.

In Agents of Justice, Quinn Mulroy argues that this system of governance was built and shaped by the concerted, mission-driven efforts of the agency officials who have largely been written out of the story of the litigation state. She traces how constrained civil rights and environmental agencies established during the rights revolution developed creative strategies for mobilizing mass private legal activity on the statutes they enforce, generating significant, societal-level regulatory effects. In doing so, they acted as agents of justice. Mulroy builds a new theory of the origins and development of the litigation state, challenging the conventional view that it was created to circumvent the bureaucracy and durably insulate private regulatory action in the courts. Through comparative case studies of the agencies charged with combatting employment discrimination, environmental degradation, and housing discrimination, she uncovers the pivotal, but quite hidden, role of agency officials in building, sustaining and, at times, even weakening private legal activity over time. By centering the efforts of agents of justice in our conception of the litigation state, this book offers major lessons for our understanding of American politics, regulation, and state building from the mid-20th century to the present.

Quinn Mulroy is Assistant Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and (by courtesy) Political Science at Northwestern University. Her research examines the political development of rights policies, focusing on how ideas and conceptions of what equal opportunity means in the US are reshaped in policy implementation processes over time. She was previously an assistant professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1: Introducing Agents of Justice
2: How, When, and Why Agencies Mobilize Private Legal Power
3: Fair Employment Litigation and the EEOC: The Toothless Tiger Finds Its Bite
4: Environmental Litigation and the EPA: The Information Architects
5: Fair Housing Litigation and HUD: The Door that Didn't Open
6: The Politics of Agents of Justice
Methodological Appendix
References

Erscheinungsdatum	06.12.2023
Reihe/Serie	Studies in Postwar American Political Development
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	168 x 239 mm
Gewicht	540 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften
ISBN-13	9780190942588 / 9780190942588
Zustand	Neuware