Framing theory means that people will be susceptible to definitions of the plan – strengthening IP will get criticized

The influence of law on the framing processes of A2K activists illustrates what I call the “gravitational” force that law can exert on framing processes. Law is, of course, only one among many resources for framing.245 Nonetheless, there is good reason to believe that law has a particularly powerful influence on the meaning-making efforts of movement actors. This follows directly from law’s status as a dual resource (to use Pedriana’s term) and from the fact that “[l]egal practices carry with them their own inherent constraints on what is accepted as legally sensible or compelling.”246 The term “gravitational” is thus intended to designate something more than the role of law as a “master frame.” 247 It points also to the special form of constraint that legal frames exert upon those who use them. From the discursive perspective, of course, all frames are freighted with preexisting meanings and affordances, and cannot be wielded simply to suit the aims of an actor. But legal frames are more constrained—more weighty, if you like—than many because they are imbued with doctrine and history, and tethered to institutions that are authorized to define and implement the law. If law attracts movement actors because it is “semantically permeable,” in Siegel’s words, 248 it also directs their arguments because it is semantically constrained. The term “gravitational” marks this directionality. It is not, however, intended to figure law as the center of the social universe. Everything with mass exerts a gravitational pull; the more massive an object, the greater the force. A crucial caveat is in order. To say that law exerts a gravitational pull on the framing processes of groups is not the same thing as saying that engagement with law tends to coopt or deradicalize groups.249 An exploration of that question is beyond the scope of this Article. Importantly, though, the gravitational and integrative effects that are here discussed are meaningful even if they do not lead to cooptation in the classic sense because they influence the path that a movement/countermovement conflict takes. The gravitational pull that law has exerted on the framing processes of the A2K mobilization has, as I describe below, affected the group’s architecture, discourse, and strategies. It has also brought it into alignment with its opponents, creating zones of agreement between A2K groups and their opponents, but also zones of common disagreement. This Part concludes by theorizing three possible implications of law’s gravitational pull. If law integrates groups with their opponents, movement/countermovement conflict can strengthen law even as it unsettles it, as Siegel has noted. To the extent that movement actors become aware of these effects, they may be better able to predict and control them, with strategies also drawn from the frame-analytic perspective. Perhaps most intriguing, however, are the implications of law’s integrative effect in the international domain. If publics and polities are defined as communities of disagreement, then the case study offered here suggests that law may have a significant role to play in creating such communities beyond the nation-state. Analyzing the A2K mobilization, that is, may help us not only understand the new politics of IP, but also may help us theorize how new forms of international and transnational law may facilitate the emergence of global polities and publics