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LPE Blog

Weekly Roundup: March 1, 2024

Ganesh Sitaraman and Morgan Ricks on why tech platforms are the new common carriers; Suresh Naidu, Ilyana Kuziemko, and Nicolas Longuet Marx on why less educated voters have gravitated away from the Democratic Party; and Etienne Toussaint on why we need to embrace a new vision of constitutional citizenship. Plus, upcoming events with Lina Khan and Vincent. . .

Abolitionism as a Question of Citizenship

The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments extended citizenship to formerly enslaved persons. But what did this status entail? In the subsequent political debates over abolition, one view carried the day: a contract and property-based notion of citizenship that fortified rather than unsettled antebellum era social relations. To realize the promise of Reconstruction. . .

Weekly Roundup: February 23, 2024

Daniel Morales analyzes the “crisis” at the US-Mexico Border, while Ganesh Sitaraman and Matthew Buck discuss the history of airline regulation. Plus, research grants from the HPE project, a CFP on labor and the law, Willy Forbath on the Taft Court, Zephyr Teachout on Netchoice, a new episode from Fragile Juggernaut, a conference on the future. . .

The U.S.-Mexico Border as a Crisis of Social Reproduction

Despite what you may have heard on Fox News or read in the New York Times, the crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico is neither about the border, nor about migrants’ impact on the country. Rather, the staging of a border crisis is an attempt by Republicans (and unwitting democrats) to put in place new machinery of social reproduction.

Weekly Roundup: February 16, 2024

Jed Kroncke on territorial labor in the American Empire, and Megan Wachspress on how workers can divest their labor from war. Plus, the second session of our Courts reading group, a conference on neoliberalism, a cool new job building out the LPE-cinematic universe, and two new pieces on that old chestnut, the State.

Can Workers Bargain Over Bombs?

In their statement calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine, the UAW International Executive Board raised a tantalizing possibility: What if UAW workers were to divest their labor from the construction of weaponry? Under current labor law, how might workers make their complicity in the military-industrial complex a mandatory subject of bargaining?. . .

Territorial Labor and the Political Economy of American Empire

From Afro-Diasporic laborers building the Panama Canal to contemporary Micronesians trafficked to work in Iowa’s pork industry, the labors of “territorial peoples” have been central to America’s economic rise. This often overlooked history is both an indictment of our constitutional tradition and a harbinger of the tactics of legal disempowerment deployed. . .

Weekly Roundup: February 9, 2024

John Mark Newman grades the progress of the new antimonopoly era, and Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani describe new research about the mutually reinforcing nature of political and economic inequality. Plus, upcoming events with Vincent Bevins, Hila Shamir, Tim Schwab, new papers from Karen Tani, Katie Eyers, and Gali Racabi, and an interview with. . .