Dynamic advocacy: Legal mobilization and the pursuit of sociolegal change in Canada

This project examines the strategic form and function of legal mobilization. The scholarship on this topic is extensive, yet it falls short of explaining how and why mobilization continues after the enactment of activist won law reform. This project remedies this by exploring the strategic determinants of post-reform sexual assault advocacy in Canada. Be it through consent workshops, online modules or informationally targeted materials, Canadian feminists have increasingly used educational strategies. Questioning how and why these strategies are used, I advance a theoretical account of activists’ opportunities and ambitions. Focusing on factors external to the activist group itself, this project proposes a theory of contemporary legal mobilization that credits the use of educational advocacy to the common pursuit of leadership amongst internally differentiated groups. The dynamics that unfold amongst activists, therefore, ground my study of legal advocacy strategy in the aftermath of legal reform.