Hiding in Plain Sight: Pseudonymity and Participation in Legal Mobilization

Abstract

How and when do people participate in sustained collective action via the courts? Previous research highlights group identity or resources and political opportunities but overlooks civil procedural rules’ effects beyond the courtroom. This article explores how rules regarding privacy shape individuals’ decisions about sustained participation. Fears of exposing one’s identity deter participation, especially in the context of public trials. Yet, a paired comparison of litigation by victims of hepatitis C-tainted blood products in Japan and Korea reveals that court-supervised privacy protections, which were available in Japan but not in Korea, facilitate plaintiffs’ participation inside and outside the courtroom. They ease plaintiff recruitment and enhance claimants’ credibility. Counterintuitively, they also let claimants strategically shed pseudonymity to send a costly signal about their commitment to the cause. Theorizing “pseudonymous participation” as an understudied mode of activism between full exposure and anonymity demonstrates that seemingly technical aspects of law have significant political consequences.

The Differential Use of Litigation by NGOs: A Case Study on Antidiscrimination Legal Mobilization in Belgium

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Civil Society and the State in Democratic East Asia: Between Entanglement and Contention in Post High Growth.

“…For litigation regarding sensitive or stigmatizing issues like disabilities, Korean courts have introduced some innovations to protect the parties' privacy (Arrington 2019). Since anyone with a complaint's number can look up plaintiffs' names and other details online, Korean attorneys often closely guard case numbers and ask reporters to conceal their clients' names.…”

Coproducing the Endangered Polar Bear: Science, Climate Change, and Legal Mobilization

“…Scholarship has also looked at legal institutions in addition to political ones to explain why some groups turn to courts. Drawing on social movement theory, scholars have deployed the concept of legal opportunity structure (LOS) to explain how the scope of access to justice and the nature of procedural rules in a particular jurisdiction both impact the likelihood that groups and individuals will mobilize the law and shape the ways in which they ultimately do (Hilson ; Andersen ; Vanhala ; Conant et al ; Kahraman ; Arrington ). The focus of this literature is the institutional‐level constraints and incentives that determine a plaintiff's ability and willingness to sue.…”