Inside the Aid/Watch Case: Translating across Political and Legal Activism

Main Article Content

James Goodman

Abstract

The article explores the interaction between legal and political strategy in producing social change. It centres on a long-running dispute in Australia over whether charities can have a dominant political purpose. The focus is on the strategising of the small activist charity that successfully pursued the case over a five-year period. As an 'insider' account, the article charts the in-practice process of translating activisms across legal and political fields. With a stress on contingency and agency, the account affirms a 'politics of rights' approach to legal activism. It shows how the case opened-up new grounds for political contestation, and as such offered prospects for 'non-reformist reform'. It also demonstrates how this occurred more by strategic engagement with unintended effects, than necessarily by design.

Article Details

Section
Articles (refereed)
Author Biography

James Goodman, University of Technology Sydney

James Goodman is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney.