  The powerful quantization formalism of Batalin and Vilkovisky streamlines the
derivation of the complete set of (non-linear) identities arising from the
local BRST symmetry of Yang-Mills theories. When applied in the Background
Field Method type of gauges, it also gives rise to identities which relate
Green's functions involving background fields to Green's functions involving
quantum fields. All these identities lie at the core of the recent progress in
understanding from the continuum formulation the IR dynamics emerging from
lattice simulations. In this talk, we will first review the Batalin-Vilkovisky
formalism and then apply it to the problem of extracting the effective charge
from the available lattice data.
