An LPE Approach to Constitutional Law, Jedediah Britton-Purdy. Commentary by Amy Kapczynski and Ganesh Sitaraman

Joined by the insight that the "the economy" cannot be separated from questions of power, distribution, and democracy, a growing group of legal scholars has begun to center questions of law and political economy ("LPE") as part of a critical transformation in legal thought. ACS is pleased to join with the LPE Project in hosting an online course introducing students to LPE analysis. LPE frameworks highlight law's role in the perpetuation of racial and gender injustice, the devaluation of social and ecological reproduction, and the violence of the carceral state under capitalism, and to explore concrete legal reforms designed to move beyond neoliberalism and toward a genuinely responsive, egalitarian democracy, with critical attention to the need for power and movement-building as part of any such transformation.

How does an LPE approach reframe constitutional law? How does constitutional law interact with social hierarchy and economic power? Is the Constitution friend, enemy, or frenemy of democracy? In this lecture, Professor Purdy will address these questions as well as illustrate how an LPE approach can recenter questions of power and the economic dimensions of constitutional law that are all too often positioned as beyond the Constitution's reach.

Suggested Readings:
No Democracy
Why Law & Political Economy?

Featuring:
Jedediah Britton-Purdy, William S. Beinecke Professor of Law, Columbia Law School; Faculty Co-Director, Law and Political Economy Project

With Commentary from:
Amy Kapczynski, Professor of Law, Faculty Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, and Faculty Co-Director of the Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency, Yale Law School; Faculty Co-Director, Law and Political Economy Project; cofounder, Law and Political Economy blog.
Ganesh Sitaraman, Professor of Law, ACS Faculty Advisor, and Director of the Program in Law and Government, Vanderbilt Law School; Member, ACS Board of Directors and Board of Academic Advisors.

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