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Essay

The Political Economy of Abortion Law in the EU

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In the aftermath of Dobbs, EU institutions and leaders have started to mobilize to defend reproductive freedom. However, the EU’s current approach to abortion access – which regulates it through economic and human rights frameworks – not only contributes to a stratified system of care, but also risks privatizing and depoliticizing the. . .
Symposium

The Insurance Industry Is Not the Victim

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The rapidly worsening home insurance crisis is often understood as primarily a problem for insurers. Yet the overarching policy question should not be, “how do we save the home insurance industry from collapsing?” but rather, “what role should insurance markets play in the broader suite of policies to keep people safely housed?”
Essay

Meddling with International Relations

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Boycotts and international sanctions both represent alternative means of lawmaking that challenge the liberal legal order. But while the disruptive potential of boycotts has largely been contained, international sanctions have evaded the constraints of international law. By looking to the social-movement roots of international sanctions, we might be able. . .
Essay

Weekly Roundup: June 29

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Ntina Tzouvala on Genocide and Political Economy at the ICJ, Chloe Thurston and Emily Zackin on the long history of American debtor politics, and James Kilgore, Emmett Sanders, and Kate Weisburd on the many myths of electronic monitoring. Plus, Amy Kapczynski reviews Mehrsa Baradaran’s new book, Noah Zatz discusses the court order enjoining the UC. . .
Essay

Can Personal Debt Mobilize Voters?

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While recent conventional wisdom has held that it is futile to organize voters around debt relief, a longer view reveals that there is nothing inevitable about the lack of debtor mobilization. Through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, debtors repeatedly demanded protection in times of economic distress — a history that contains important lessons. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: June 21

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Tal Rothstein on collective organizing at the law reviews, and Scott Cummings on the role of lawyers in democratic backsliding. Plus, upcoming LPE events on mobilizing against the courts and the political economy of genocide, a new open-access book on radically legal politics, a piece on the history of racist plunder through local tax codes, and a forum. . .
Essay

When Lawyers Attack the Rule of Law

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While scholars have recently highlighted the role of law in democratic backsliding, they have largely ignored the actors who wield this tool: lawyers. Yet as the guardians of the legal legitimacy upon which autocratic legalism depends, the profession is a critical arena of democratic struggle that merits special attention.
Essay

Workers of the Law Reviews, Unite!

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The uncompensated work that law students perform to run the field’s journals is best understood as part of an economy of prestige: an opportunity to burnish one’s resume in hopes of landing a lucrative or high-status job after graduation. Among other problems with this arrangement, it leaves American legal scholarship vulnerable to repression. Recently,. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: June 14

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Ethan Ris on why you should ignore the Ivy League, Greta Krippner on the puzzling persistence of gender discrimination in insurance markets, and Grace Li on the role of associative life in prisons. Plus, the final session in our series on What To Do About the Courts, a cool job at the Roosevelt Institute, a new series on Twail and economic sanctions, a. . .
Essay

A Hidden Source of Labor Extraction in Prisons

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Formal and informal associations in prisons are vital providers of food, financial support, physical security, education, news, legal representation, and more. The volume and scope of associations in prisons lay bare the diversity and extremity of needs that the state fails to meet, while also suggesting shortcomings with a patchwork approach by civil society. . .
Symposium

The Colleges are Alright

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Despite the outsized attention they receive, “Ivy Plus” schools are ultimately a footnote in the larger story of higher education. The American system, while stratified, developed in such a way that stratification does not forestall opportunity. To understand this situation, we need to look back at a (failed) crusade to restrict access to college.
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: June 7

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Maryam Jamshidi on the securitization of the university, and Sarena Martinez on the quasi-sovereign power of insurers. Plus, a handful of must-attend LSA panels and events (including our happy hour!), a new report by Sabeel Rahman on State Capacity, Tim Wu and Lev Menand on the FTC’s non-compete ban, the first LPE NYC happy hour of the summer, an. . .

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