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
How to Use Endowments to Protect University Missions
If endowments are fundamentally creatures of restriction, they are also in smaller measure creatures of interpretation and discretion. Universities should use what flexibility they do have to stand up for their programs, employees, and students – for the core constituents in a mission-driven environment – in this time of unprecedented assault.
You’re Paying Big Tech’s Power Bill
By exploiting their monopolies and control over rate-setting processes, utility companies are shifting the costs of Big Tech’s voracious energy consumption onto an unwitting public.
Carceral Political Economy in the Era of Late Mass Incarceration
The LPE Project is thrilled to be co-sponsoring, “Carceral Political Economy in the Era of Late Mass Incarceration” at the New School for Social Research, March 21-22, with The Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies. What is the political economy of “late” mass incarceration? How has the globally unparalleled US system of mass imprisonment remained…
Why Local Officials Need to Embrace a Movement-Centric Ethos
In attempting to fill the policy voids created by recent federal retreat, local governments face a significant constraint: the increasing use of state and federal preemption. To confront this challenge, local elected officials and municipal attorneys need to adopt a movement-oriented approach to governing and municipal law.