The Constitution of Interests Beyond the Politics of Rights [Paperback]

Many of America's most important social and political movements--abolition, women's suffragette, civil rights, women's liberation, gay and lesbian rights--have organized in the shadow of the law. All are based in their theoretical opposition to the law. Yet at the same time, they are dependent on the laws that prohibit them. Law is thus formed as much through the dynamic tensions that govern how these laws are received as through their official decree.
Legal forms such as contracts, property, and rights also constitute social and political life because they structure our world. John Brigham here focuses on four ideological movements and their strategies, among them the struggle over the closing of gay bathhouses in the early years of the AIDS crisis and the radical feminist use of rage and radical consciousness in anti- pornography campaigns. The effect of law on politics, Brigham convincingly reveals, is pervasive precisely because political life finds its expression in a surprising variety of legal forms.

The strengths of the book are many. The theme is well conceived and argued. It is thought provoking and informative. The author has done his homework. . . . [and] does a good job of weaving his theme from chapter to chapter. Highly recommended. In the wake of legal realism, it has become commonplace to question the distinction between law and politics. Usually, this is accomplished by asserting that law is a creature of politics, with legal doctrines serving as a mere medium for the conveyance of normative political preferences. In The Constitution of Interests, however, Professor Brigham demonstrates that the causal arrow also points in the opposite direction. Political and ideological movements can be understood as products of the very legal concepts that they seek to transcend. Brigham's thesis is thoughtful, carefully constructed, and tantalizing in its implications. John Brigham's work is always at the cutting edge of law and politics researcl£