= E-reserves;
= Blackboard course materials;
= World Wide Web (hyperlink from syllabus);
= Stokes Library 3 hour reserve; also available for purchase at Labyrinth.
Where to find the readings:
= E-reserves;
= Blackboard course materials;
= World Wide Web (hyperlink from syllabus);
= Stokes Library 3 hour reserve; also available for purchase at Labyrinth.
Week One. February 6 and 8. Introduction: the variety of institutions .
The first week of the course will lay out three cases aimed at illustrating the range of institutions the course will consider: (1) publicly ordered institutions (citizenship), (2) private ordering within a legal framework (contract), and (3) institutions whose rules and practices are not generally established through law, though they may have the state's patronage or acceptance (science).
Citizenship:
Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 21-34 (Ch. 1 "Citizenship as Social Closure").
Contract:
Margaret Jane Radin, Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), xiii-xvii (Prologue) and 1-18 (Ch. 1).
Science:
Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), 604-615 ("Science and Democratic Social Structure").
Week Two.February 13 and 15: What are institutions, and why do they matter? Institutional analysis and legal systems.
This week examines different approaches to institutional analysis and institutional change and to legal systems .
February 13: Contrasting disciplinary and theoretical perspectives on institutions
Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), Chs. 1, 9.
Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter Powell, "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields." American Sociological Review 48 (1983), 147-160.
Giovanni Capoccia and Daniel Keleman, "The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism," World Politics (2007) 59: 341-54 [first 14 pages only].
February 15: Legal systems
H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), Ch. 5 ("Law as the Union of Primary and Secondary Rules"), 79-99.
John Henry Merryman and Rogelio Perez-Perdomo, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Europe and Latin America, 3rd ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 1-5, 20-33.
Week Three. February 20 and 22. Political institutions: state-building, the nation-state, and constitutionalism.
In this week, we will examine the rise and consolidation of the modern nation-state as both a social and a legal project.
Michael Mann, "The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms, and Results," in John A. Hall, ed., States in History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). 109-36.
Charles Tilly,"States and Nationalism in Europe 1492-1992," Theory and Society (1994), 23: 131-146.
Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast, "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," Journal of Economic History 49 (Dec. 1989), 803-832.
Week Four. February 27 and March 1. Democracy and law
We now take up questions about the institutional framework of democracy: What are the primary types of institutional design and what are their consequences? What role does law play in regulating democracy? And can constitutions and courts prevent democracies from being undone democratically?
February 27: The design of democracy
G. Bingham Powell, Jr.,"Constitutional Designs as Visions of Majoritarian or Proportional Democracy," in Elections as Instruments of Democracy (Yale University Press, 2000), Ch. 2.
Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela S. Karlan, and Richard H. Pildes, "An Introduction to the Design of Democratic Institutions," in The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process, 4th ed. (New York: Foundation Press, 2012), 1-13.
March 1: Democratic backsliding and breakdown
Kim Lane Scheppele, "Constitutional Coups and Judicial Review: How Transnational Institutions Can Strengthen Peak Courts at Times of Crisis," Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems (Spring 2014),23: 51-71 [first 20 pages only].
Nancy Bermeo, "On Democratic Backslding," Journal of Democracy (January 2016), 27 (1): 5-19.
Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk, "The Danger of Deconsolidation," Journal of Democracy (July 2016), 27 (3): 5-17.
Weeks Five and Six. March 6 and 8. Legal institutions
We turn to the institutions that shape the legal process, focusing on courts, judges, and judicial review.
March 6. Courts, lawyers, and juries (Paul Frymer)
Marc Galanter, "Why the Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change" Law and Society Review 9 (1974), 95-160.
Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Robert Gebeloff, "Beware the Fine Print, Part I: Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice," New York Times Oct. 31, 2015; and
Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Michael Corkery, "The Fine Print, Part II: In Arbitration, a 'Privatization of the Justice System,'" New York Times Nov. 1, 2015
Jeffrey Abramson, We, the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy
(New York: Basic Books, 1994), Ch. 1.
March 8: Constitutional change and judicial review
Bruce Ackerman,We the People (1): Foundations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), required:, 40-50 (beginning with "The Shape of the Constitutional Past" in Chapter 2). Optional background: 3-22, 34-39.
Christopher L. Eisgruber, Constitutional Self-Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 10-45 (Ch.1).
Martin Shapiro, "The Success of Judicial Review and Democracy," in Shapiro and Alec Stone Sweet, On Law, Politics, and Judicialization (New York : Oxford University Press, 2002).
March 13: The expansion of rights (Paul Frymer)
Ronald Dworkin, "Taking Rights Seriously," in Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (1977), 184-205.
Robert Cover, "The Origins of Judicial Activism in the Protection of Minorities." Yale Law Journal 91 (1982), 1287-1316.
Paul Frymer, Black and Blue: African Americans, the Labor Movement, and the Decline of the Democratic Party (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), Chs. 2-3.
March 15. Midterm exam.
Week Seven. March 27 and 29. The public-private boundary
As we turn from publicly ordered institutions to privately ordered institutions within a legal framework, we consider the meaning of the public-private boundary, the changing understanding of property and the corporation, and the movement of property rights, organizations, and functions from public to private or vice versa.
March 27. Property and the public-private boundary
Paul Starr, "The Meaning of Privatization," Yale Law and Policy Review 6 (1988): 6-19 [Part I only].
Stuart Banner, American Property: A History of How, Why, and What We Own (Harvard University Press, 2011), 1-22, 94-108 (Introduction, Chs. 1 and 4).
Michael Heller, The Gridlock Economy (Basic Books, 2008), Ch. 1 ("The Tragedy of the Anti-Commons").
March 29. Capitalism and the corporation
Max Weber, General Economic History (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1950), 275-278 ("The Meaning and Presuppositions of Modern Capitalism").
Ronald E. Seavoy, "The Public Service Origins of the American Corporation," Business History Review (1978), 52: 30-33, 58-60.
Week Eight. April 3 and 5: Institutions and economic growth
This week, drawing on comparative and historical evidence, we consider how institutions, especially those created through politics and law, may affect economic growth, and how economic growth may affect institutions. An additional focus is the effect of differences in family structure and female agency..
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (New York: Crown Business, 2012), Chs. 2-4, 7-10, 14-15.
Sarah Carmichael, Alexandra M. de Pleijt and Jan Luiten van Zanden,
"Gender Relations and Economic Development: Hypotheses about the Reversal of Fortune in EurAsia," Centre for Global Economic History, University of Utrecht (August 2016).
B. Zorina Khan and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, "Institutions and Democratic Invention in 19th Century America,"
American Economic Review (2004), 94: 395-401.
Week Nine. April 10 and 12. Labor and employment.
This week's subject is the the institutional structure of labor, beginning with slavery versus free labor and turning to contemporary changes in labor markets and occupations. The latter subject also continues our discussion of the structure of the corporation.
April 10. Slave versus free labor
Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Harvard University Press, 1982), 1-14.
Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Knopf, 2014), 31-39, 98-120.
David Weil, The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It (Harvard University Press, 2014), 1-5, 28-42, 43-44, 76-92.
Kim Weeden,"Why Do Some Occupations Pay More than Others? Social Closure and Earnings Inequality in the United States," American Journal of Sociology 108.1: 55-70 [first 15 pages only]. Week Ten. April 17 and 19. The structuring of the American health-care system
We focus first on the rise of the medical profession and its role in shaping health care in America and then on the recent (and ongoing) changes in the system.
Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, (New York: Basic Books, 1982), Introduction, Chs. 1-3.
Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, rev. ed. (June 2017), "Epilogue: Chain Reactions, 1982-2016"
Week Eleven. April 24 and 26. Civil society, religion, and politics
This week we consider how institutional change in civil society has affected political advocacy, and the relation between religion and the law.
April 24. Changing structures of civic engagement
Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), Chs. 1-2.
David Karpf, The Moveon Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy(Oxford University Press, 2012), Chs. 1-2.
April 26. Church and state
Stephen V. Monsma and J. Christopher Soper, The Challenge of Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies, 2d ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 1-28.
Michael Corkery and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, "Beware the Fine Print, Part III: In Religious Arbitration, Scripture is the Rule of Law," New York Times Nov. 2, 2015.
Week Twelve.May 1 and 3. Contemporary institutional change in a global context
Changes in institutions in one country do not take place in isolation from others. This is expecially true today as new institutional models and policy paradigms have diffused throughout the world. What's the relationship of American institutions to these new patterns?
May 1. Global changes in the structure of government
Alasdair Roberts, The Logic of Discipline: Global Capitalism and the Architecture of Government (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), Chs. 1-2.
Frank Dobbin, Beth Simmons and Geoffrey Garrett, "The Global Diffusion of Public Policies: Social Construction, Coercion, Competition, or Learning?" Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007), 449-472.
May 3. The virtues and limits of American institutional exceptionalism (final lecture)
Last modified: March 27, 2017.