Judicialization in Argentina: Legal Culture or Opportunities and Support Structures?

Abstract

Since 1983, Argentina has experienced a process of judicialization of conflicts and of juridification of social interactions. Why and when did people turn to the law? Are these processes associated with changes in legal culture? Are they related to modifications of the opportunity structure for rights claiming? Alternatively, are they explained by the existence of support structures for legal mobilization? This chapter will argue that judicialization in Argentina is not related to ex ante changes in legal culture, but rather to the combined effects of changes in opportunity structures for claim making and the earlier emergence of a support structure for legal mobilization consisting of labor lawyers and a new rights advocacy network of nongovernmental organizations (NGO). These two developments resulted in an increase in the judicialization of claims insofar as they transformed legal demands into a strategic political tool. INTRODUCTION In many parts of the world, courts and the law are playing an increasingly important political role. Courts are redefining public policies decided by representative authorities, and citizens are using the law and rights-framed discourses as political tools to address private and social demands, as well as to govern everyday social interactions previously regulated by cooperation, trust, or kinship. This increased use of legal procedures and rights-framed discourses is taking place in various forms and places and has given birth to a growing literature on the judicialization of politics. Argentina is not exempt from this process.