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The Law and Political Economy Project

Weekly Roundup: April 12

We offer our biannual round-up of forthcoming LPE and LPE-adjacent scholarship, while Premal Dharia concludes our symposium on Radical Acts of Justice. Plus, the fourth session of our Courts series with Amy Kapczynski and Ganesh Sitaraman; a special issue of Law & Contemporary Problems with work by David Grewal, Christine Desan, and others; an online reading group on Brenna Bhandar and Cheryl Harris; and an upcoming event with the FTC’s consumer protection chief, alongside Frank Pasquale and Luke Herrine.

A Crisis of Purpose in Public Defense

That public defense is in a state of crisis is far from controversial. Crushing caseloads and rampant underfunding have created untenable working conditions under which even the most well-meaning defenders often struggle to effectively represent their clients. And yet, Jocelyn Simonson, in her important new book Radical Acts of Justice, identifies a deeper, more existential crisis facing public defense — not one of funding, but of purpose.

Weekly Roundup: April 5

Mila Versteeg, Kevin Cope, and Gaurav Mukherjee on the right to sleep under bridges, Luke Messac on how the IRS could reduce medical debt, and Elizabeth Dale on the history of popular police power. Plus, the fourth session of our Courts series with Amy Kapczynski and Ganesh Sitaraman, a TWAIL conference on non-western Imperialisms, an upcoming event on Aziz Rana’s The Constitutional Bind, Lina Khan on the Daily Show, Jed Purdy on Raymond Williams, and Nate Holdren and Rob Hunter on Werner Bonefeld’s A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion.

LPE Originals

Toolkit for Court Reform I with Ganesh Sitaraman and Amy Kapczynski

The fourth session of our 6-part open course/reading group “What To Do About The Courts,” cohosted with the People’s Parity Project, will take place on April 16 at 8pm ET/ 5pm PT. This session will be led by Professors Ganesh Sitaraman and Amy Kapczynski. TOPIC: Several reforms have been proposed to restructure, reform, and/or disempower the courts, each with…

Popular Justice Reborn? 

The activists depicted in Radical Acts of Justice challenge the idea that criminal prosecutors represent “the People.” But where did that idea come from in the first place? By tracing the long shift in American history from informal, non-professional law enforcement to our current system of formal, bureaucratized law enforcement, we can better understand the terrain on which contemporary popular justice movements are waging their struggles.

The Unavoidable Consequences of Being Human

Next month, the Supreme Court will decide whether it is constitutional for cities to punish unsheltered people for sleeping outside, even when the city fails to provide any safe alternative. Yet, no matter how the court rules, homeless people will still face significant threats from cities.

Weekly Roundup: March 15, 2024

Julieta Lobato on Milei’s labor governance, Evan Bernick on the role of the Constitution in freedom struggles, and Jonathan Glater & Adriana Hardwicke on the fracturing of higher education. Plus, the next session in our Courts open course, a call for recently accepted LPE-relevant articles, pieces on the destruction of the Covid social safety net, the future of health care reform, and the politics of inequality, and, finally, Joe Biden is putting America back to work: job openings at the LPE Blog, the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, and the American Economic Liberties Project.

Radical Constitutionalism and a Critique of Nonviolence

The most important work of legal scholarship in some time, Jocelyn Simonson’s Radical Acts of Justice raises, but does not develop, two major sets of questions. The first concerns the role of the Constitution in freedom struggles; the second, the legitimate role (if any) of violence in transformative left politics in the United States.

Weekly Roundup: March 8, 2024

Zephyr Teachout discusses the democratic stakes of NetChoice, and Jocelyn Simonson kicks off a symposium on her recent book, Radical Acts of Justice. Plus, a lunch talk with Lina Khan (today!), two events on LPE & Civil Procedure, an event on student debt organizing, new books from Sandeep Vaheesan and Lenore Palladino, articles on Chevron, housing policy, What To Do About the Courts, and the contradictions of the WSJ Editorial Board, and two upcoming summer schools for early career researchers.

“The Fuel for Everything”: Acts of Care as Sources of Hope

At times, the possibility of aligning our formal systems of justice with our normative aspirations appears almost inconceivable. Yet we can locate some faith in justice and democracy by looking to the concrete acts of collective care taking place all around us. In this post, Jocelyn Simonson kicks off a symposium on her recent book, Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration.

LPE Originals

International & Comparative Perspectives with Aziz Rana

The third session of our 6-part open course/reading group “What To Do About The Courts,” cohosted with the People’s Parity Project, will take place on March 19th at 8pm ET/ 5pm PT. This session will be led by Professor Aziz Rana. TOPIC: The dramatic power of the U.S. judiciary in constitutional life makes it an outlier on the…

LPE Originals

LPE NYC: Unequal Procedure

Please join LPE NYC on Thursday, March 14 from 12:00-1:00 ET for Unequal Procedure: LPE and Civil Procedure. Helen Hershkoff will lead a conversation featuring Charlton Copeland, Kathryn Sabbeth, and Daniel Wilf-Townsend on inequality in the various domains touched by civil procedure. The panel will focus on how procedure magnifies and creates inequality, with particular…