Contesting Economic and Social Rights in Ireland

Dr Thomas Murray is Lecturer in Equality Studies at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin. His research focuses on law and society 'from below', with specific interests in economic and social rights, Irish and comparative constitutions, and world-systems analysis. Dr Murray obtained his PhD from the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, where the Irish Research Council helped fund his work. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico, during which time he attended the Zapatista Autonomous Rebel Centre of Mayan Languages, Tzotzil and Spanish (CELMRAZ) in Oventic, Chiapas. He has presented his research to the European Consortium of Political Research, the Left Forum, Historical Materialism, the Political Studies Association of Ireland, the Irish Jurisprudence Society, and the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class. He has published in Social and Legal Studies, Irish Political Studies and the Journal of World-Systems Research. This is his first book.

Acknowledgements; Introduction: the politics of economic and social rights; 1. Constitutions 'from below' in Ireland: 1848–1922; 2. 'Not alone personal liberty but economic freedom': socio-economic rights in the making of the 1922 Irish Free State Constitution; 3. 'Highly dangerous'? Socio-economic rights in the making of the 1937 Irish Constitution; 4. Contesting the Irish Constitution and the world-system: 1945–2008; 5. The polarities of justice and 'legal business'; 6. Contesting property rights; 7. Contesting trade union rights; 8. Contesting family, education and welfare rights; 9. Socio-economic rights and the value-consensus state; 10. Constitution 'from below' in Ireland: 1945–2008; Conclusion: contesting economic and social rights today.