The Social Constitution
Embedding Social Rights Through Legal Mobilization

Shows how legal mobilization embeds constitutions in everyday life, pushing newly codified rights from words on paper to meaningful tools.

Whitney K. Taylor (Author)

9781009367769, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 June 2023

274 pages
28 x 19 x 2.2 cm, 0.63 kg

'In this uncommonly elegant book, Whitney Taylor single-handedly reframes our understanding of the social welfare promises found in many of the world's constitutions, showing with rich and subtle data that rights to healthcare, housing, clean water, and so much more have the potential to become real in the lives of ordinary people when supported from below by ongoing litigation, and from above by receptive judicial rulings. A compelling analysis, brimming with important ideas, and powerfully supported with a range of evidence.' Charles Epp, The University of Kansas

In The Social Constitution, Whitney Taylor examines the conditions under which new constitutional rights become meaningful and institutionalized. Taylor introduces the concept of 'embedding' constitutional law to clarify how particular visions of law come to take root both socially and legally. Constitutional embedding can occur through legal mobilization, as citizens understand the law in their own way and make legal claims - or choose not to - on the basis of that understanding, and as judges decide whether and how to respond to legal claims. These interactions ultimately construct the content and strength of the constitutional order. Taylor draws on more than a year of fieldwork across Colombia and multiple sources of data, including semi-structured interviews, original surveys, legal documents, and participation observation. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

1. Introduction: the social constitution
2. Constitutional embedding through legal mobilization
3. Expectations and transformations of Colombian constitutional law
4. Social embedding
5. Legal embedding
6. Challenges to embedding: legal legibility
7. Challenges to embedding: power struggles
8. Challenges to embedding: workload
9. Partial constitutional embedding: the case of South Africa
10. Conclusion. Social constitutionalism and the politics of rights
Appendix: interviewees.

Subject Areas: Law & society [LAQ]