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
Outrage and Resistance: Abolitionist Lessons for the Present Crisis
The Trump Administration’s open rejection of due process and equal protection echoes some of the darkest aspects of antebellum America, when black Americans were frequently kidnapped and disappeared into the South without recourse. Yet this history also shows that direct legal representation can play a powerful role in mobilizing public opposition to unjust policies and proceedings.
Weekly Roundup: May 16
Salomé Viljoen on data governance and techno-authoritarians, Kelly Grotke on the foundations of the current crisis in higher ed, and Isaac Kamola on the role of dark money organizations in the campus speech wars. Plus, an incredible CFP for junior work and labor scholars, a special issue of the JLPE on securities law and climate change, Katharina Pistor and David Pozen on Columbia's review of its University Senate, Adam Bonica on why Democrats should reject mega-donor money, Ben Dinovelli on the Federal Reserve's Forgotten Mandate, Nathaniel Donahue on Humphrey’s Executor, Kate Jackson on Lenore Palladino's Good Company, and Fred Block on the possibility of remaking finance for the public good.
When It Comes to Free Speech, Dark Money Often Speaks Louder...
In September 2024, an anonymous donor gifted $100 million to the University of Chicago to promote free speech. A closer look at dark money’s role in manufacturing campus free speech crises reminds us to be highly skeptical of understandings of campus speech funded by elite interests, especially when they replace institutional deliberation with a legalistic absolutism that leaves hierarchies of wealth and power unchallenged.
Reckoning with the Reckoning in Higher Ed
Universities' decisions in dealing with the 2008 financial crisis laid the foundation for the current financial and social crisis in higher education.