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.
About The LPE Project
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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
A Speakers Bureau of LPE-affiliated professors and practitioners design to help faculty and students to bring LPE scholars to their campuses (even if virtually for now). Information about the amazing work being done by LPE student groups around the country, how to get in touch with them, as well as guidance on starting a student…
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
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Towards a Law and Political Economy Approach to the Global War...
To ensure support for its Global War on Terror, the United States has exploited the Pakistani government’s reliance on foreign credit to guarantee cooperation in US counterinsurgency operations. In leveraging its role as a lender to provide Pakistan with short-term financial relief, the United States has deepened Pakistan’s economic dependency, undermined the nation’s chance for a more equal domestic political and economic arrangement, and consolidated the power of its domestic military elite.
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APPEAL’s Capitalism Reading Group with Etienne Toussaint
Etienne Toussaint, Assistant Professor, South Carolina School of Law, will discuss his paper, The Spirit of Racial Capitalism in Colonial America. Professor Toussaint teaches contracts, business associations, and courses related to business, political economy, and critical theory. Other areas of expertise include community development and housing law as well as environmental engineering.
APPEAL Event on Government Religious Hospitals
At this upcoming APPEAL event, Elizabeth Sepper and James D. Nelson will discuss Government Religious Hospitals: American governments are not supposed to own or operate religious institutions. But they do. Across the country, states run hospitals that enforce religious doctrine. The origins of these hospitals lie at the intersection of dramatic transformations in healthcare’s political economy and in…
How Governments (and Others) Should Present Complicated Information
Voters respond differently to policy options depending on how they are presented. Determining what constitutes ethical presentation demands an an exercise in prudence.