Building up a constructive relationship between law and the social sciences to investigate the “CRPD-in-action”: experiences from a descriptive study

Voting rights of persons with disabilities must be ensured by States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD sets out legal obligations of States Parties to ensure de jure and de facto realisation of the right to vote by persons with disabilities. How can a disability researcher analyse compliance by States Parties with the CRPD? The present article argues that for achieving a fully developed disability legal scholarship, legal studies about the implementation of the CRPD need to combine the perspectives of jurisprudence and social sciences. Based on the author’s experience in carrying out the ongoing study “Voting Matters”, this article examines an innovative theoretical and methodological framework to understand how the CRPD is implemented through law and policy, and “in practice”. This means to investigate the “CRPD-in-action”. It concludes that this is a challenging task that can be accomplished through an evidence-based approach and a mixed-research design.