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Today I talked to Mark Neocleous about his new book Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police (Verso, 2025).
For more than two decades, Neocleous has been a pioneer in the radical critique of policing, security, and warfare. Today we will discuss his newest work on the theory and practice of pacification, which, he argues, is “social warfare carried out through the ideology of peace.” Pacification not only aims to counter resistance to capitalist exploitation, dispossession, and displacement, but it aims to prevent such resistance from emerging in the first place by constructing social institutions and the built environment. Pacification is a totalizing process by which states deploy social policies, symbolic practices, and coercive operations in order to produce cooperative – or at least acquiescent – subjects. However, pacification never succeeds in obscuring the antagonistic nature of capitalist social relations. Consequently, pacification becomes an endless social war for peace.
Mark Neocleous is Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University in London. His previous books include A Critical Theory of Police Power (reissued by Verso in 2021), The Politics of Immunity (Verso, 2022), and War Power, Police Power (Edinburgh 2014). As a member of the Anti-Security Collective, he co-authored the Security Abolition Manifesto, which is available at anti-security.org.
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Birthright citizenship is established in the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution – yet Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order 14160 denies some types of birthright citizenship. The Order contradicts over a century of American law, legal practice, and constitutional interpretation. Three groups have opposed the order as unconstitutional and challenged it in the courts: and cities, civil rights organizations, and labor organizations. In the podcast, three scholars to help Susan and Lilly interrogate the meaning of natural born citizenship, the political ramifications of Trump’s order, and the complicated history of natural born citizenship in the United States.
Dr. Anna O. Law is the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights and Associate Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
Julie Novkov is Dean of Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy and Professor of Political Science and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University at Albany, SUNY.
Carol Nackenoff is the Emerita Richter Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College
Mentioned:
Calvin’s Case (1608)
Donald Trump’s Executive order 14160
Julie and Carol’s 2021 book American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship and their NBN interview with Susan.
Anna’s 2025 FREE open-access article “The Civil War and Reconstruction Amendments’ Effects on Citizenship and Migration”
Anna’s NBN conversation with Heath Brown on her 2017 book, The Immigration Battle in American Courts
Lilly’s conversation with Martha Jones about her book, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America
Kate Masur, Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from Revolution to Reconstruction (2021)
Lilly’s NBN conversation with Elizabeth Cohen and Cyril Ghosh about their 2019 book Citizenship
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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The Unruly Tongue: Speech and Violence in Medieval Italy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) by Dr. Melissa Vise, offers a new account of how the power of words changed in Western thought. Despite the association of freedom of speech with the political revolutions of the eighteenth century that ushered in the era of modern democracies, Dr. Vise locates the history of the repression of speech not in Europe’s monarchies but rather in Italy’s republics. Exploring the cultural process through which science and medicine, politics, law, literature, and theology together informed a new political ethics of speech, Dr. Vise uncovers the formation of a moral code where the regulation of the tongue became an integral component of republican values in medieval Europe.
The medieval citizens of Italy’s republics understood themselves to be wholly subject to the power of words not because they lived in an age of persecution or doctrinal rigidity, but because words had furnished the grounds for their political freedom. Speech-making was the means for speaking the republic itself into existence against the opposition of aristocracy, empire, and papacy. But because words had power, they could also be deployed as weapons. Speech contained the potential for violence and presented a threat to political and social order, and thus needed to be controlled. Dr. Vise shows how the laws that governed and curtailed speech in medieval Italy represented broader cultural understandings of human susceptibility to speech. Tracing anthropologies of speech from religious to political discourse, from civic courts to ecclesiastical courts, from medical texts to the works of Dante and Boccaccio, The Unruly Tongue demonstrates that the thirteenth century marked a major shift in how people perceived the power, and the threat, of speech: a change in thinking about “what words do.”
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Kristin Olbertson is the first comprehensive study of criminal speech in eighteenth-century New England, traces how the criminalization, prosecution, and punishment of speech offenses in Massachusetts helped to establish and legitimate a social and cultural regime of politeness.
Analyzing provincial statutes and hundreds of criminal prosecutions, Dr. Olbertson argues that colonists transformed their understanding of speech offenses, from fundamentally ungodly to primarily impolite. As white male gentility emerged as the pre-eminent model of authority, records of criminal prosecution and punishment show a distinct cadre of politely pious men defining themselves largely in contrast to the vulgar, the impious, and the unmanly. “Law,” as manifested in statutes as well as in local courts and communities, promoted and legitimized a particular, polite vision of the king's peace and helped effectuate the British Empire. In this unique and fascinating work, Dr. Olbertson reveals how ordinary people interacted with and shaped legal institutions.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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Critics on the Left have long attacked open markets and free trade agreements for exploiting the poor and undermining labor, while those on the Right complain that they unjustly penalize workers back home. In Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital (Harvard University Press, 2019), Kimberly Clausing takes on old and new skeptics in her compelling case that open economies are actually a force for good. Turning to the data to separate substance from spin, she shows how international trade makes countries richer, raises living standards, benefits consumers, and brings nations together. At a time when borders are closing and the safety of global supply chains is being thrown into question, she outlines a clear agenda to manage globalization more effectively, presenting strategies to equip workers for a modern economy and establish a better partnership between labor and the business community.
Kimberly Clausing holds the Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. During the first part of the Biden Administration, Clausing was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis in the US Department of the Treasury, serving as the lead economist in the Office of Tax Policy. Prior to coming to UCLA, Clausing was the Thormund A. Miller and Walter Mintz Professor of Economics at Reed College. Professor Clausing is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She has worked on economic policy research with the International Monetary Fund, the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution, the Tax Policy Center, and the Center for American Progress. She has testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Committee on Finance, the Senate Committee on the Budget, and the Joint Economic Committee. Professor Clausing received her B.A. from Carleton College in 1991 and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1996, both in economics.
Other New Books Networks interviews on related themes include Yale economist Penny Goldberg, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, on The Unequal Effects of Globalization, Princeton economist Leah Boustan on how immigrants have contributed to and rapidly assimilated into US society, and University of Massachusetts economist Isabella Weber on China's process of integration into the world economy.
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In this episode, Jorge Goldstein, the author of Patenting Life, delves into the critical junction where biotechnology meets patent law. With a background as a molecular biologist turned patent attorney, Goldstein offers unique insights into how commercial biology has evolved and its profound effects on patent regulations. The discussion takes listeners on a journey from the early days of recombinant DNA technology to the cutting-edge advancements of CRISPR. Goldstein articulates how the commercialization of biological research influences scientific inquiry and reshapes patent law, highlighting key legal cases that have set the boundaries for patenting living organisms while addressing the complex ethical considerations that accompany these developments.
A significant theme in the conversation is the ongoing tension between academic research and commercial interests. Goldstein explains how this dynamic has molded patent policies and research agendas, emphasizing the concept of “enabling life” through patents. He also touches on emerging challenges posed by technologies like AI in biotechnology, raising questions about ownership and consent regarding biological materials and genetic data. Reflecting on broader ethical implications, Goldstein discusses the responsibilities that come with innovation in biotechnology and patent law while considering the future challenges for intellectual property frameworks, particularly in light of advancements in CRISPR and synthetic biology.
This episode provides a comprehensive overview of how the patenting of life has transformed not only biology and medicine but also the legal landscape, prompting listeners to think critically about the implications of these changes for society.
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Succinct and eloquent, On Privacy and Technology (Oxford UP, 2025) is an essential primer on how to face the threats to privacy in today's age of digital technologies and AI.
With the rapid rise of new digital technologies and artificial intelligence, is privacy dead? Can anything be done to save us from a dystopian world without privacy?
In this short and accessible book, internationally renowned privacy expert Daniel J. Solove draws from a range of fields, from law to philosophy to the humanities, to illustrate the profound changes technology is wreaking upon our privacy, why they matter, and what can be done about them. Solove provides incisive examinations of key concepts in the digital sphere, including control, manipulation, harm, automation, reputation, consent, prediction, inference, and many others.
Compelling and passionate, On Privacy and Technology teems with powerful insights that will transform the way you think about privacy and technology.
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In the latest episode of Madison’s Notes, I spoke with Janie Nitze, co-author of Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law (Harper, 2004), a book written alongside Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Janie, a Harvard-educated attorney and former clerk for Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch, discussed the growing complexity of laws in America and their impact on everyday citizens. The book shares stories of ordinary Americans—fishermen in Florida, families in Montana, monks in Louisiana, and more—who find themselves caught in legal mazes created by an overwhelming and often opaque system of regulations.
Janie explained that while laws are necessary to maintain order and freedom, the sheer volume and complexity of modern regulations can undermine those principles. She highlighted how excessive laws, many of which are created by unelected agency officials, disproportionately affect those without wealth or power. Through these stories, Over Ruled shows how overregulation can erode trust in the legal system and create unintended consequences for individuals navigating their lives.
Janie’s perspective, shaped by her work at the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, provided a clear look at the challenges of balancing regulation and individual liberty. Over Ruled is a timely exploration of these issues, and this episode offers a deeper understanding of the human cost of too much law. Tune in to hear Janie’s insights and learn more about the stories behind the book.
Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.
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Violence has only increased in Mexico since 2000: 23,000 murders were recorded in 2016, and 29,168 in 2017.
The abundance of laws and constitutional amendments that have cropped up in response are mirrored in Mexico's fragmented cultural production of the same period. Contemporary Mexican literature grapples with this splintered reality through non-linear stories from multiple perspectives, often told through shifts in time. The novels, such as Jorge Volpi's Una novela criminal [A Novel Crime] (2018) and Julián Herbert's La casa del dolor ajeno [The House of the Pain of Others] (2015) take multiple perspectives and follow non-linear plotlines; other examples, such as the very short stories in ¡Basta! 100 mujeres contra la violencia de género [Enough! 100 Women against Gender-Based Violence] (2013), present perspectives from multiple authors.
Few scholars compare cultural production and legal texts in situations like Mexico, where extreme violence coexists with a high number of human rights laws. Unlawful Violence: Mexican Law and Cultural Production (Vanderbilt UP, 2022) measures fictional accounts of human rights against new laws that include constitutional amendments to reform legal proceedings, laws that protect children, laws that condemn violence against women, and laws that protect migrants and Indigenous peoples. It also explores debates about these laws in the Mexican house of representatives and senate, as well as interactions between the law and the Mexican public.
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Constitutional Ratification Without Reason (Oxford UP, 2022) focuses on constitutional ratification, the procedure in which a draft constitution is submitted by its creators to the people or their representatives in an up or down vote determining implementation. Ratification is increasingly common and routinely recommended by experts. Nonetheless, it is neither neutral nor inevitable. Constitutions can be made without it and when it is used it has significant effects. This raises the central question of the book: should ratification be recommended? Put another way: is there a reason for treating the procedure as a default for the constitution-making process? Surprisingly, these questions are rarely asked. The procedure’s worth is assumed, not demonstrated, while ratification is generally overlooked in the literature. In fact, this is the first sustained study of ratification.
To address these oversights, this book defines ratification and its types, explains for the first time the procedure’s effects, conceptual origins, and history, and then concentrates on finding reasons for its use. Specifically, it builds up and analyzes the three most likely normative justifications. These urge the implementation of ratification because the procedure: enables the constituent power to make its constitution; fosters representation during constitution-making; or helps create a legitimate constitution. Ultimately, these justifications are found wanting, leading to the conclusion that ratification lacks a convincing, context-independent justification. Thus, experts should not recommend ratification as a matter of course, practitioners should not reach for it uncritically, and—more generally—one should avoid the blanket application of concepts from democratic theory to extraordinary contexts such as constitution-making.
Jeffrey Lenowitz is the Meyer and W. Walter Jaffe Associate Professor of Politics at Brandeis University, focusing on political theory. His research explores the the procedures uses to create new constitutions; constituent power and constitutional theory; the concept of legitimacy in the social sciences; voting ethics; and other aspects of democratic theory and institutional design.
Vatsal Naresh is a Lecturer in Social Studies at Harvard University. His recent publications include co-edited volumes on Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism (OUP 2021) and Constituent Assemblies (CUP 2018).
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Alexandra Grey speaks with Karen McAuliffe about multilingual law-making.
Karen is a Professor of Law and Language at Birmingham Law School in the UK. The conversation is about the important legal opinions delivered by the Advocates General at the European Court of Justice, and the effects of Advocates General drafting those opinions in their second or third language and with multilingual support staff.
It builds on a chapter written by Karen McAuliffe, Liana Muntean & Virginia Mattioli in the book Researching the European Court of Justice, edited by Madsen, Nicola and Vauchez and published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.
For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. You can also follow Alexandra on LinkedIn and Karen on BlueSky @profkmca.bsky.social.
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While full- and part-time college faculty and lecturers go about their jobs—doing all that is seen (teaching and publishing) and unseen (class prep, grading, and researching)—little, if any time is given to the uncomfortable acknowledgment that those acts have legal ramifications. Navigating Choppy Waters: Key Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know (2025, Rowman & Littlefield) thoughtfully addresses topics that are vital for those in academia.
Kent Kauffman is an Associate Professor of Business Law at Purdue University Fort Wayne.
Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.
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In this conversation, we sit down with John D. Wilsey, Professor of Church History and Philosophy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, to tackle the urgent and often contentious topic of religious freedom in America. Drawing from his forthcoming book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (William B. Eerdmans, 2025), Wilsey examines how conservatives have historically understood religious freedom, how those views have evolved, and why the gap between past and present perspectives matters in today’s culture, and how it is the bedrock of American Government.
Wilsey addresses issues at the heart of this debate: How has the conservative understanding of religious freedom shifted, and what are the consequences of that shift?
Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.
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Shortly after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 47th American president, he issued 37 executive orders and, subsequently, the Trump administration has – through formal processes and also through extra-governmental extraordinary practices – triggered what many are calling a governmental and/or constitutional crisis. Dr. Christina Pagel has published two important Substack articles in which she groups the activities of the Trump administration into authoritarian and proto-authoritarian actions – and maps the opposition. Her unbelievable Venn diagram reveals which actions are being met with organized resistance – and which are being left unchallenged. She is a data hound – and her data not only clarifies what is happening in the United States but provides tools for those who wish to effectively oppose it in the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Christina Pagel is Professor of Operational Research in Health Care, University College London. Operational Research is a pragmatic branch of mathematics to help people solve real-life problems. She is a member of Independent SAGE providing accessible updates on the national and international Covid-19 situation since May 2020. She has published in public-facing venues such as The Conversation and her free Substack, Diving into Data & Decision making. You can follow her on social media.
Mentioned in the podcast:
Christina’s 2/13/25 Substack, "So this is how liberty dies… " Making sense of Trump's first three weeks (categorizing 76 Trump administration actions and demonstrating how they align with authoritarianism).
Christina’s 2/17/25 Substack, How to fight back: charting opposition to the actions of the Trump administration (showing how Blue states, labor organizations, and civil rights groups are doing the most – and what can be learned from them).
The Just Security’s Litigation Tracker based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law.
Vox’s 2/12/25 Unexplainable podcast, “Is Science in Danger?” (20 minutes) Noam Hassenfeld interviewing Derek Dowe (chemist/science writer) Transcript or podcast.
Susan’s interview with Corey Brettschneider on his new Norton book The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It
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Elsa Stamatopoulou’s Indigenous Peoples in the International Arena: The Global Movement for Self-Determination (Routledge 2025) provides a definitive account of the creation and rise of the international Indigenous Peoples’ movement.
In the late 1970s, motivated by their dire situation and local struggles, and inspired by worldwide movements for social justice and decolonization, including the American civil rights movement, Indigenous Peoples around the world got together and began to organize at the international level. Although each defined itself by its relation to a unique land, culture, and often language, Indigenous Peoples from around the world made an extraordinary leap, using a common conceptual vocabulary and addressing international bodies that until then had barely recognized their existence. At the intersection of politics, law, and culture, this book documents the visionary emergence of the international Indigenous movement, detailing its challenges and achievements, including the historic recognition of Indigenous rights through the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. The winning by Indigenous Peoples of an unprecedented kind and degree of international participation – especially at the United Nations, an institution centered on states – meant overcoming enormous institutional and political resistance. The book shows how this participation became an increasingly assertive self-expression and even an exercise of self-determination by which Indigenous Peoples could both benefit from and contribute to the international community overall – now, crucially, by sharing their knowledge about climate change, their approaches to development and well-being, and their struggles against the impact of extractive industries on their lands and resources.
Written by the former Chief of the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, this book will be of interest to researchers, teachers, students, advocates, practitioners, and others with interests in Indigenous legal and political issues.
Elsa Stamatopoulou is Director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Program and Adjunct Professor in the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, the Department of Anthropology, and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, USA. Elsa is also Former (the first) Chief of the Secretariat of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (among other functions at the UN).
Tim Wyman-McCarthy is a Lecturer in the discipline of Human Rights and Associate Director of Graduate Studies at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. He can be reached at [email protected].
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As Americans increasingly depend upon their phones, computers, and internet resources, their actions are less private than they believe. Data is routinely sold and shared with companies who want to sell something, political actors who want to analyze behavior, and law enforcement who seek to monitor and limit actions.
In The Private is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism (NYU Press, 2025), law professor Ray Brescia explores the failure of existing legal systems and institutions to protect people’s online presence and identities. Examining the ways in which the digital space is under threat from both governments and private actors, Brescia reveals how the rise of private surveillance prevents individuals from organizing with others who might help to catalyze change in their lives. Brescia argues that we are not far from a world where surveillance chills not just our speech, but our very identities. Surveillance, he suggests, will ultimately stifle our ability to live full lives, realize democracy, and shape the laws that affect our privacy itself.
Brescia writes that “The search for identity and communion with others who share it has never been easier in all of human history. At the same time, our individual and collective identity is also under threat by a surveillance state like none that has ever existed before. This surveillance can be weaponized, not just for profit but also to promote political ends, and undermine efforts to achieve individual and collective self-determination”
The book identifies the harms to individuals from privacy violations, provides an expansive definition of political privacy, and identifies the ‘integrity of identity’ as a central feature of democracy. The Private is Political lays out the features of Surveillance Capitalism and provides a roadmap for “muscular disclosure”: a comprehensive privacy regime to empower consumers to collectively safeguard privacy rights.
Professor Ray Brescia is the Associate Dean for Research & Intellectual Life and the Hon. Harold R. Tyler Professor in Law & Technology at Albany Law School. He is the author of many scholarly works including Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession (from NYU Press) and The Future of Change: How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions (from Cornell UP). He is also the author of public facing work, most recently “Elon Musk’s DOGE is executing a historically dangerous data breach” on MSNBC. He started his legal career at the Legal Aid Society of New York where he was a Skadden Fellow, and then served as the Associate Director at the Urban Justice Center, also in New York City, where he represented grassroots groups like tenant associations and low-wage worker groups. Ray’s blog is “The Future of Change” and you can find him on LinkedIn.
Mentioned:
Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism
Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, Amy Howe, SCOTUSBLOG
Kevin Peter He on “data voodoo dolls”
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'The king can do no wrong' remains one of the most fundamental yet misunderstood tenets of the common law tradition. Confusion over the phrase's historical origins and differing meanings has had serious consequences, making it easier for the state to escape liability for the harm caused to individuals by governmental officials or institutions.
In The King Can Do No Wrong: Constitutional Fundamentals, Common Law History, and Crown Liability (Oxford University Press, 2024), the first dedicated monograph on the topic, Dr. Marie-France Fortin traces the historical evolution of 'the king can do no wrong' in constitutional and public law to shed new light on our current understanding of crown liability. The different meanings conveyed by the phrase in the common law world are clarified; the contradictions between them revealed. Adopting a historical constitutional approach, the book delves deep into traditional legal sources to develop an intellectual history of this key legal idea. It explains the mutation from 'the king can do no wrong' to 'the crown can do no wrong' at the end of the nineteenth century, analyzing the resulting departure from core tenets of the constitutional arrangement of the seventeenth century. The study of the evolution of 'the king can do no wrong' in English legal thinking, mirrored in Canada, is complemented by a comparative analysis of the idea in Australia, Ireland, and the United States, where its relationship with the concept of sovereign immunity is scrutinized.
Retracing the evolution of the king can do no wrong in legal thinking, this book enhances academics', students', practitioners', and judges' understanding of the law of governmental liability in the common law world.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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When we think about "red tape" and the cost of regulation it's hard to overstate the impact of professional licensing. According to Professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth, it's bigger than unions and more expensive than sales taxes.
Millions of American workers are required - by law - to obtain a license in order to work. This barrier of entry depends on requirements set by licensing boards staffed mainly by members of the profession they oversee. It limits the number of people who can serve and also confers on licensees a certain degree of prestige and trust.
In The Licensing Racket: How We Decide Who Is Allowed to Work, and Why It Goes Wrong (Harvard UP, 2025), Allensworth goes deep into a complex web of conflicting priorities.
Whether it's hair stylists or doctors, plumbers or lawyers, licensing board members are asked to simultaneously represent their personal practice, fellow professionals, and the public. They have to literally "wear three hats", which leads to well-intentioned, but deeply flawed and biased, decision making.
Consumers depend on licensing boards to ensure that professionals maintain high quality and reliability standards by creating - and enforcing - licensing standards.
In reality, their decisions can be maddeningly arbitrary, creating unnecessary barriers to hopeful practitioners while simultaneously failing to protect the public from bad actors who abuse the trust placed in them.
Despite good intent, board members lack the resources and sometimes the will to investigate even serious disciplinary cases. The consequences include, but are not limited to, the failure of medical licensing boards to remove the abusive doctors who fueled the opioid crisis and a system that allows unethical predatory lawyers to continue to practice, often targeting clients who are unable to protect themselves.
While in some areas licensing is deeply flawed, in others it is critical to a well-functioning society. Allensworth argues for abolition where appropriate and reform where it is most needed.
See Professor Allensworth's faculty profile video
Author recommended reading:
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
- Drug Dealer, MD by Anna Lembke, MD
Hosted by Meghan Cochran
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Immigration is now a polarizing issue across most advanced democracies. But too much that is written about immigration fails to appreciate the complex responses to the phenomenon. Too many observers assume imaginary consensus, avoid basic questions, or disregard the larger context for human migration.
In Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy (Oxford University Press, 2025), Hiroshi Motomura offers a complex and fair-minded account of immigration, its root causes, and the varying responses to it. Taking stock of the issue's complexity, while giving credence to the opinions of immigration critics, he tackles a series of important questions that, when answered, will move us closer to a more realistic and sustainable immigration policy. Motomura begins by affirming a basic concept—national borders—and asks when they might be ethical borders, fostering fairness but also responding realistically to migration patterns and to the political forces that migration generates. In a nation with ethical borders, who should be let in or kept out? How should people forced to migrate be treated? Should newcomers be admitted temporarily or permanently? How should those with lawful immigration status be treated? What is the best role for enforcement in immigration policy? To what extent does the arrival of newcomers hurt long-time residents? What are the "root causes" of immigration and how can we address them?
Realistic about the desire of most citizens for national borders, this book is an indispensable guide for moving toward ethical borders and better immigration policy.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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This conversation includes James Boyle, Duke University; Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, UPR-M; Héctor José Huyke, UPR-M, and Natalia Bustos, UPR-M.
This is the first of two episodes about The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood. The second, in Spanish, will appear on the New Books Network en español. The series is sponsored by the Encuentros descoloniales focal group at Instituto Nuevos Horizontes at UPRM, a group of scholars who consider how decolonial approaches can provide nuance in scientific knowledge.
This episode and the Instituto Nuevos Horizontes at the UPRM have been supported by the Mellon Foundation. The conversation is part of the “STEM to STEAM” project of the “Cornerstone” initiative, sponsored by the Teagle Foundation, which stresses the importance of integrating humanistic perspectives in the sciences.
The Line: AI and the Future of Personhood is available online for free through the MIT website per the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License.
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