Neoliberalism and Radical Rights: On the Work and Theory of Law and Organising

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to scholarship regarding the critique of rights through the examination of the role of rights discourse in the furtherance of what is generally termed ‘community organising’—in particular, tenant organising—in the social and political context of neoliberalism. Conceptions of neoliberalism advanced in the work of David Harvey, Michel Foucault, Wendy Brown, and Bonnie Honig are synthesised to explicate the material and discursive role of law in the maintenance and furtherance of the neoliberal project. The article assesses the left-legal critique of rights presented primarily through the Critical Legal Studies Movement alongside the role of legal practice and legal discourse in countering neoliberalism.