Description
Book SynopsisThe judicialisation of religious freedom conflicts is long recognised. But to date, little has been written on the active role that religious actors and advocacy groups play in this process. This important book does just that. It examines how Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Sikhs, Evangelicals, Christian conservatives and their global support networks have litigated the right to freedom of religion at the European Court of Human Rights over the past 30 years. Drawing on in-depth interviews with NGOs, religious representatives, lawyers and legal experts, it is a powerful study of the social dynamics that shape transnational legal mobilisation and the ways in which legal mobilisation shapes discourses and conflict lines in the field of transnational law.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Transnationalisation, Judicialisation and the Regulation of Religion From the National to the Transnational Regulation of Religion Religious Freedom Advocacy in a Transnational Legal Field Trajectories of Legal Mobilisation: Empirical Observations Contributions Chapter Outline
1. Fielding Religious Freedom Advocacy: A Sociological Approach to Transnational Legal Mobilisation Social Movements and Legal Mobilisation A Shift of Perspective: Mobilisation in (Transnational) Legal Fields Methods and Data
2. Enacting the Liberal Script: Religious Transatlantic Networks and an Emerging Legal Field From the Shadow of National Sovereignty to the Formation of a Transnational Legal Field Jehovah’s Witnesses and Evangelicals: Early Pioneers of Religious Freedom Litigation Enacting the Liberal Frame of Religious Freedom
3. Constituting Identities: Sikhs between Symbolic Gains and Legal Marginalisation Diaspora Politics and Legal Mobilisation ‘Jurimetrics’ of the Challenger: Fitting the Legal Niche
4. The Orthodoxy of the Powerful: Christians Fighting against Change Federating Symbolic Capital Defending Incumbency Inequalities and Symbolic Boundaries
5. Endogenous Change in the Transnational Field: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims and Christians’ Recursive Mobilisation Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Expansion of Religious Freedoms Muslims between Repeat Failure and Growing Activism Conservative Christians’ Pushback against Anti-Discrimination Norms
Conclusion: Faith in Rights or Right Faith? Religious Freedom Mobilisation and the Governance of Religious Diversity Towards a Field-Theoretical Understanding of Legal Mobilisation? Religious Freedom
quo vadis? Current Developments and Future Research Perspectives
