The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?

The Hollow Hope argues that judicial action is limited in bringing about significant social reform. The third edition includes new data and analysis of civil rights, abortion rights, women's rights, and marriage equality, and draws lessons from the re-segregation of public schools, victories in marriage equality, and new obstacles to abortion access.

Format: Hardback
Length: 736 pages
Publication date: 12 May 2023
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Since its initial publication in 1991, The Hollow Hope has sparked debate and challenged assumptions on both the left and the right about the ability of courts to bring about durable political and social change. What Gerald N. Rosenberg argued then, and what he confirms today through new evidence in this edition, is that it is nearly impossible to generate significant reforms through litigation: American courts are ineffective and relatively weak, far from the uniquely powerful sources for change they are often portrayed to be.

This third edition includes new data and a substantially updated analysis of civil rights, abortion rights and access, women's rights, and marriage equality. Addressing changes in the political and social environment, Rosenberg draws lessons from the re-segregation of public schools, victories in marriage equality, and new obstacles to abortion access. Through these and other cases, the third edition confirms the power of the book's original explanatory framework and deepens our understanding of the limits of judicial action in support of social reform, as well as the conditions under which courts do produce change. Up-to-date, thorough, and thought-provoking, The Hollow Hope remains vital reading.

Weight: 1168g
Dimension: 159 x 238 x 49 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226312330
Edition number: Third Edition