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
Prices and Supply, and How Landlords Control Them
Attempts to solve the affordable housing crisis rely on a flawed understanding of housing economics and landlord business practices. In reality, landlords are colluding to manipulate the market. Antitrust law could be the answer.
The Tax Struggle and Renewable Power
As the Trump administration moves to roll back clean energy tax credits, the real question isn't whether renewable energy will survive, but who will own and control the infrastructure that powers America's future.
Weekly Roundup: June 13
Shelley Welton discusses the political hurdles facing modern public power movements, and Jed Britton-Purdy interviews Shitong Qiao about neighborhood democratization in urban China. Plus, a save the date for the inaugural Association of Law and Political Economy conference, the first LPE NYC happy hour of the summer, an upcoming ACS panel on building worker & tenant power, Sam Moyn on the limitations of freedom as independence, and Delaney Nolan on Louisiana's "creative" system for funding eviction courts.
The Authoritarian Commons: An Interview with Shitong Qiao
In the United States, homeowners’ associations are often a symbol of petty authoritarianism or suburban conformity. Yet in China these same organizations have become laboratories of democracy for millions of people. Jed Britton-Purdy interviews Shitong Qiao about how these associations form, why the Chinese government tolerates them, and whether they vindicate modernization theory.