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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Future Of Materialist Constitutionalism, Robert L. Tsai
The Future Of Materialist Constitutionalism, Robert L. Tsai
Faculty Scholarship
This is a review essay of Camila Vergara, Systemic Corruption (Princeton 2020). In this lively and important book, Vergara argues that corruption should be given a structural definition, one that connects corruption with inequality and is plebeian rather than elitist. After surveying the work of thinkers from Machiavelli to Arendt, she proposes a set of solutions grounded in the civic republican tradition.
I press several points in my essay. First, Vergara's linkage of corruption with inequality is promising, but introduces tension between a general problem (domination of the many by the few) and a more specific problem (the domination of …
Anti-Modalities, David E. Pozen, Adam Samaha
Anti-Modalities, David E. Pozen, Adam Samaha
Faculty Scholarship
Constitutional argument runs on the rails of “modalities.” These are the accepted categories of reasoning used to make claims about the content of supreme law. Some of the modalities, such as ethical and prudential arguments, seem strikingly open ended at first sight. Their contours come into clearer view, however, when we attend to the kinds of claims that are not made by constitutional interpreters – the analytical and rhetorical moves that are familiar in debates over public policy and political morality but are considered out of bounds in debates over constitutional meaning. In this Article, we seek to identify the …
Power Transitions In A Troubled Democracy, Peter L. Strauss, Gillian E. Metzger
Power Transitions In A Troubled Democracy, Peter L. Strauss, Gillian E. Metzger
Faculty Scholarship
Written as our contribution to a festschrift for the noted Italian administrative law scholar Marco D’Alberti, this essay addresses transition between Presidents Trump and Biden, in the context of political power transitions in the United States more generally. Although the Trump-Biden transition was marked by extraordinary behaviors and events, we thought even the transition’s mundane elements might prove interesting to those for whom transitions occur in a parliamentary context. There, succession can happen quickly once an election’s results are known, and happens with the new political government immediately formed and in office. The layer of a new administration’s political leadership …
Constructing Countervailing Power: Law And Organizing In An Era Of Political Inequality, Kate Andrias
Constructing Countervailing Power: Law And Organizing In An Era Of Political Inequality, Kate Andrias
Faculty Scholarship
This Article proposes an innovative approach to remedying the crisis of political inequality: using law to facilitate organizing by the poor and working class, not only as workers, but also as tenants, debtors, welfare beneficiaries, and others. The piece draws on the social-movements literature, and the successes and failures of labor law, to show how law can supplement the deficient regimes of campaign finance and lobbying reform and enable lower-income groups to build organizations capable of countervailing the political power of the wealthy. As such, the Article offers a new direction forward for the public-law literature on political power and …