Socio-Legal Researcher in Equality, Gender and Law
This page presents current doctoral research, earlier academic theses, and broader research interests. The work is connected by a continuing interest in how legal concepts acquire meaning, how law interacts with social structures, and how legal language can shape legitimacy, inequality, and institutional practice.
Explore current research, completed theses, and areas of ongoing inquiry.
My doctoral research examines the development and limits of temporary special measures in gender-equality law, with particular attention to discrimination claims brought by men. The project considers when positive action remains a proportionate response to structural inequality and when it risks reproducing new forms of unequal treatment.
Combining doctrinal and socio-legal approaches, the research draws on international, European Union, and Latvian equality law. It also examines how institutional context, historical patterns of disadvantage, and gender representation should shape the assessment of special measures.
Working title:
Gender Equality from Prohibition of Positive Discrimination to Positive Action: Historic and Sociological Discourse
This thesis examines how human-rights NGOs in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania respond to the effects of hybrid warfare, disinformation, and growing societal polarisation, with particular attention to the Russian-speaking diaspora. It explores the role of civil society organisations in protecting minority rights, strengthening democratic resilience, and promoting social cohesion during a period of heightened regional insecurity.
Using a mixed-methods approach combining document analysis, interviews with NGO representatives, and comparative analysis across the Baltic States, the research also considers the practical limitations faced by NGOs, including funding constraints, political pressure, and the increasing prioritisation of national security over minority-rights concerns.
Degree: M.A. in Sociology of Law, University of the Basque Country and the International Institute for the Sociology of Law
Year: 2024
This thesis examines how Russia uses the language and principles of international law to justify strategic action and lend legitimacy to its conduct in the international system. Focusing on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it analyses Russia’s use of concepts such as sovereignty, self-determination, minority rights, and human rights.
Drawing on rational choice theory, the research argues that legalistic rhetoric functions as a deliberate strategic tool: it helps Russia frame its actions as lawful, deflect international criticism, and reduce political and reputational costs. More broadly, the thesis explores how legal language shapes perceptions of legitimacy, influences state behaviour, and can be used as a form of lawfare.
Degree: LL.B. in Law and Diplomacy, Riga Graduate School of Law
Year: 2023
My broader research interests lie at the intersection of law, society, language, and inequality. I am particularly interested in how legal categories are constructed, interpreted, and contested, and how apparently neutral legal concepts may reproduce social assumptions or structural disadvantage.
Current areas of interest include:
Equality and anti-discrimination law
Positive action, temporary special measures, stereotyping, proportionality, and competing discrimination claims.
Gender and legal meaning
The legal construction of gender, translation, terminology, and the political re-signification of legal concepts.
Legal semiotics and legal language
How meaning is produced through legal texts, institutional practices, judicial reasoning, and public discourse.
Sociology of law
The relationship between formal law, social structures, institutional culture, and lived experience.
Legal ethics and professional responsibility
The ethical obligations of legal professionals and the social role of lawyers, judges, and legal institutions.
Elīna Rancāne 