Litigating with or against other groups? The influence of inter-organisational relations on legal mobilisation in Europe

The role of the courts in European politics has generated scholarly debate. This article aims to explore how organisations turn to the courts in different countries, and how legal mobilisation varies from one context to another. It explores in particular how equality agencies in Sweden and Belgium address disputes involving employment discrimination in their domestic courts. Based on interviews with legal officers, combined with the analysis of anti-discrimination case law, this study reveals that, alongside political opportunities, legal opportunities, resources, and identity, legal mobilisation is also shaped by inter-organisational relations, and on two levels: when the EU directives were transposed into national law and when legal agents from different organisations interact with each other. Beside the attention paid to inter-organisational relations, this paper argues that comparative research should focus not only on the volume of litigation but also on the significance that legal agents give to litigation in different contexts.