The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project brings together a network of scholars, practitioners, and students working to develop innovative intellectual, pedagogical, and political interventions to advance the study of political economy and law. Our work is rooted in the insight that politics and the economy cannot be separated and that both are constructed in essential respects by law. We believe that developments over the last several decades in legal scholarship and policy helped to facilitate rising inequality and precarity, political alienation, the entrenchment of racial hierarchies and intersectional exploitation, and ecological and social catastrophe. We aim to help reverse these trends by supporting scholarly work that maps where we have gone wrong, and that develops ideas and proposals to democratize our political economy and build a more just, equal, and sustainable future.
LPE project
Learn
A variety of resources designed to help faculty and students learn more about LPE, including syllabi from LPE and LPE-related courses, primers on topics such as neoliberalism and legal realism, as well as videos from a number of events we have held over the last year.
Go to LearnEngage
Information about the amazing work being done by LPE student groups, as well as guidance on starting a student group on your own campus! A bureau of affiliated professors and practitioners designed to help faculty and students to bring LPE scholars to their campuses!
Go to EngageEvents
A compendium of upcoming (and past) events put on by the LPE Project, LPE student groups, and other organizations in the LPE ecosystem.
Go to Events
Public Money, Private Secrets: Rethinking FOIA in the Age of Public-Private...
As public-private partnerships become central to modern governance, FOIA’s Exemption 4 has evolved into a powerful tool for corporate secrecy. After Argus Leader, government agencies and private firms can thwart transparency through confidentiality pacts, shielding significant public spending and regulatory decision-making from democratic oversight.
What Can Politics Make of Nature?
Alyssa Battistoni’s Free Gifts argues that capitalism limits our freedom to decide how to value the nonhuman world. Politics, as the domain in which we choose the terms of our collective life, has a special role to play in moving beyond these limitations. But what is Battistoni’s conception of politics, and how big is the effective space that the turn to politics opens up for such choice?
Weekly Roundup: Nov 21
Alyssa Battistoni on the free gifts of nature, Rob Hunter on value form theory and the accelerating climate crisis, and Reshard L. Kolabhai on what LPE can learn from the Global South. Plus, a CFP on Lawyering Without the Law, Advait Arun on the capital structure of the AI sector, Sabeel Rahman on the case for a third reconstruction, Brett Christophers on private equity, Andrew Perry on NYC's unique public spending model, Marie Thøgersen on international law's fetishistic character, and Alvin Velazquez on municipal bankrupty as political resistance.
LPE Without Borders: Lessons from the Global South
Law and political economy scholarship, immersed in a particular history of Northern law and capitalism, has tended to focus on US law and policy, with occasional excursions into Europe. But in a world where imperialist ideas and technologies tend to circle back to the metropole, and where the periphery appears to be the future of the center, the Global South has much to teach LPE about law, capitalism, and development.