APPEAL Events
CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & DISCUSSIONS
APPEAL Working Group on Corporate Governance, Law & Power: Friday, December 17, 1:00-2:30 p.m ET (UTC-5)
Professor Katharina Pistor will present on green capitalism and The Code of Capital. Via Zoom.
APPEAL annual member business meeting, December 15, 2021 at 4:15pm ET (UTC-5) via zoom.
APPEAL Working Group program: Taxation and Law and Political Economy, Wed. Dec. 15, 2021 at 3:00pm ET, featuring a groundbreaking article by co-authors Jeremy Bearer-Friend, Ari Glogower, Ariel Jurow Kleiman & Clinton G. Wallace, forthcoming in the Ohio State Law Journal. This event was co-sponsored with ClassCrits.
APPEAL Working Group- Friday, December 10th at 3pm ET (UTC-5) by zoom. Co-sponsored with ClassCrits, Inc. Etienne C. Toussaint, Assistant Professor, South Carolina School of Law, discussed his paper, The Spirit of Racial Capitalism in Colonial America. Professor Toussaint teaches contracts, business associations, and courses related to business, political economy, and critical theory. Other areas of expertise include community development and housing law as well as environmental engineering.
APPEAL Working Group-Tuesday December 7, 2021, 3:00-4:15pm ET (UTC-5) by zoom. Co-sponsored with ClassCrits, Inc. Elizabeth Sepper and James D. Nelson discussed Government Religious Hospitals: American governments are not supposed to own or operate religious institutions. But they do. Across the country, states run hospitals that enforce religious doctrine. The origins of these hospitals lie at the intersection of dramatic transformations in healthcare’s political economy and in Religion Clause doctrine. We argue that the time is ripe for the field of Religion Law and Political Economy (RLPE). Not only can RLPE illuminate the sociolegal mechanisms by which institutions like government-religious hospitals develop, it can also point the way toward a set of concrete reform measures—from state “insourcing” of social services to embracing competition policy to transacting for church-state separation. The paper uncovers and catalogues the organizational structures underlying government religious hospitals—from public ownership of formerly religious hospitals that continue to operate in accordance with religious doctrine to joint ventures in which the public actor is subordinate to a religious partner in matters of faith and mission. Neoliberalism’s ascendance created fertile soil on which government religious hospitals took root. Policies favoring austerity starved the public sector—including the local governments that typically ran public hospitals—leaving powerful religious entities as attractive state partners. A revolution in Religion Clause doctrine escalated government-religious involvement and today makes it more difficult to unwind such arrangements than in the past.
APPEAL Working Group Friday Dec. 3, at 3:30pm ET (UTC-5) online. A discussion of Mark Silverman’s working paper, The’Value of a Statistical Life’ in Economics, Law, and Policy: Reflections from the Pandemic. An Assistant Professor of Economics at Franklin & Marshall College, Mark Silverman has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a law degree from New York University. In a recent LPE Blog post, he contrasted the construction of value in cost-benefit analysis with democratic ideas about determining value.
APPEAL Reading Group: What is Capitalism? Friday Nov. 19 at 3:00 Eastern Time (UTC-5)by zoom. Daniel J.H. Greenwood, Professor of Law at Hofstra University, lead a discussion of his article on how the metaphors of corporate law obscure how corporations operate as governance institutions. Introduction to the Metaphors of Corporate Law, 4 Seattle J. for Soc. Just. 273 (2005).
Law and Political Economy Monthly Mentoring “Office Hours” November 12, 2021, 4:00pm EST, via zoom. Office hours are for new & aspiring scholars, graduate and professional students, and others interested in careers in Law and Political Economy. Co-sponsored by The Association for the Promotion of Political Economy & the Law (APPEAL) and the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project. Participating Faculty: Catherine Fisk, Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law and
Nathan Cortez, Adelfa Botello Callejo Endowed Professor of Law in Leadership and Latino Studies, SMU Dedman School of Law
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Friday Nov. 5, 2021, 2:30-4pm Eastern Time (UTC-4) by zoom. Economist Margaret Levenstein, Director of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), and Research Professor at the University of Michigan discussed her article: Margaret Levenstein, Escape from Equilibrium: Thinking Historically About Firm Responses to Competition,Enterprise and Society, vol. 13, no. 4 (Dec. 2012), pp. 710-728. Written to be accessible to non-economists, this piece examines how businesses have historically responded to competitive pressures and how this compares to the neoclassical theory of a no-profit equilibrium. It was given as the 2012 Presidential address to the Business History Conference. The discussion was facilitated by Carol Heim, Professor Emerita of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
APPEAL Working Group on Corporate Governance, Law & Power Friday, October 29, 1:30-3:00 p.m. ET: Market Myopia’s Climate Bubble via Zoom. Discussed Professor Madison Condon’s article Market Myopia’s Climate Bubble, forthcoming in the Utah Law Review. The paper explores the underpricing of corporate climate risk and assesses potential corporate law and securities regulation fixes, including enhanced climate risk disclosure mandates. Professor Condon gave a short presentation of her paper, followed by a short response by Professor An Li and an open discussion.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 14, September 10, 2021, 2:30pm, EDT (UTC-4) via Zoom. Workplace injury and illness, worker’s constitutional rights to protection, and what this shows about the legal underpinnings of capitalism was discussed . The reading was a draft of a work in progress by Professor Michael C. Duff, Winston S. Howard Distinguished Professor at University of Wyoming Law, currently visiting professor at St. Louis University Law. Professor Duff teaches and writes about workers’ compensation and tort law. He is a member scholar with the Center for Progressive Reform, author of the Workers Comp Prof blog, and the grandson of a coal miner who died of Black Lung disease. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board, a plaintiff-side workers’ compensation attorney, a blue collar shop steward, and a labor organizer.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 13, August 20, 2021, 1:00pm, EDT via Zoom. Professor Sarah Haan discussed her article Corporate Governance and the Feminization of Capital, forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review. The paper explores the rise of female-majority shareholding in U.S. public companies during the first half of the twentieth century. It further analyzes how the subsequent shift to institutional investing obscures the gendered politics of corporate control. Professor Haan teaches courses on business associations, corporate governance, and the First Amendment at the Washington and Lee University School of Law. She writes about the intersection of corporate law and democracy.
Law and Political Economy Mentoring “Office Hours”. Tuesday Aug. 3, 2021, 6:00-7:00p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. New & aspiring scholars, graduate and professional students, and others interested in careers in Law and Political Economy were welcomed to join us in our first of a series of opportunities to talk in small groups with faculty about academic interests and career strategies. Co-sponsored by The Association for the Promotion of Political Economy & the Law (APPEAL) and the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project.
Participating Faculty were:
Professor Charlotte Garden, Seattle University School of Law
Professor Sameer Ashar, University of California Irvine Law
2021 Manchester Summer Academy on Law, Money and Technology, Online July 26-30, 2021. The program of the Summer Academy was organized around once a day sessions. The sessions bring together emerging and established scholars across a range of disciplines and interests to work together in a variety of group formats around a common problem and to share insights with one another. Aside from the first day of the program, there are no formal conference-style panels. The sessions focus on questions involving the political economy and law of gender/race, markets/workplace, and technology.
The Summer Academy was modular and while the program is designed for conversations to build over the course of the days, there is no expectation of attendance across the entire program. APPEAL is proud to host alongside the University of Manchester, the Finance, Law and Economics (FLE) Working Group of the Young Scholars Initiative/Institute for New Economic Thinking, and the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 12 Friday June 25th, 2pm, EDT via Zoom. The discussion was led by Professor Kim Christensen, Sarah Lawrence Economics Department, and Martha McCluskey, Professor Emerita, University at Buffalo Law School. The readings addressed the U.S. Supreme Court case, Cedar Point Nursery vs. Hassid, where an agricultural business argues that the Constitution gives employers a right to exclude labor organizers from their property, overriding a state law giving unions access to farmworkers in the fields. The case is connected to a broader property rights movement interested in expanding businesses’ power to resist regulatory oversight.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 11 Friday May 21st, 2pm, EDT via Zoom. As part of our ongoing “What is Capitalism?” reading group Professor Ruth Dukes presented her paper “The Economic Sociology of Labour Law” (published in 2019 in the Journal of Law and Society). Drawing on the work of Max Weber, this article considers the utility of an approach to the study of labour law, which it calls the economic sociology of labour law (ESLL). It identifies the contract for work as the key legal institution in the field, and the primary focus of scholarly analysis. Characterizing the act of contracting for work as an example of what Weber called economic social action oriented to the legal order, it proposes that Weber's notion of the labour constitution be used to map the context within which contracting for work takes place. And it argues that, in comparison to traditional socio-legal approaches, ESLL has the significant advantage of allowing for account to be taken of the individual and commercial, as well as the social and legal, elements of contracting for work.
Ruth Dukes is Professor of Labour Law at the University of Glasgow, UK, and principal investigator on the research project Work on Demand: Contracting for Work in a Changing Economy. She is the author of The Labour Constitution: the Enduring Idea of Labour Law (Oxford 2014), and, with Wolfgang Streeck, Democracy at Work: Contract, Status and Post-Industrial Justice (Polity forthcoming).
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 10 Friday April 23, 2021, 1:30pm, EDT via Zoom. This session was led by APPEAL Board member, Prof. Jamee Moudud, Sarah Lawrence College Economics Department. He presented his paper on how racial capitalism was built into the legal and political design of central banking and taxation in the British Empire. While the pressures of democratic self-governance created one type of hardwiring in Britain, its white dominions’ racialized politics created a different type in the colonies of color. In short, the particular monetary hardwiring of the colonies of color effectively “kicked away the ladder” needed for their successful socio-economic development, occluding the very different policies pursued in Britain and the dominions. This left the colonies of color in a vulnerable state at independence, providing much weaker foundations for their subsequent economic development.
Law and Political Economy Monthly Mentoring “Office Hours":April 16, 2021 from 5-6pm EDT (UTC-4) via zoom. We welcomed new & aspiring scholars, graduate and professional students, and others interested in careers in Law and Political Economy to join us in our first of a series of opportunities to talk in small groups with faculty about academic interests and career strategies. Co-sponsored by The Association for the Promotion of Political Economy & the Law (APPEAL) and the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project. Participating Faculty: Prof. Deborah Dinner, Emory University, Law, Prof. Abby Reyes, UC Irvine Community Resilience Projects; UC Irvine Law, and Prof. Noah Zatz, UCLA Law
APPEAL Reading Group: What is Capitalism? Session 9 Friday March 26, 2021, Noon (12pm) via Zoom. This session explored how the historically changing relationship between the corporation, state and society sheds light on capitalism. Dr. Maha Rafi Atal, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Copenhagen Business School, who will soon begin a position as Lecturer at the University of Glasgow School of Social & Political Sciences, facilitated the discussion.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 8 February 26, 2021, 3pm, EST via Zoom. This session will explored feminist insights into the law and political economy of capitalism. The discussion leader was Professor Emerita Marilyn Power, Sarah Lawrence College Department of Economics.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 7 January 29, 2021 at 3pm EST via Zoom. This session explored the legal construction of capitalism in the context of information technologies. The reading was: Chapter 2, The Biopolitical Public Domain, from Julie E. Cohen, Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism (Oxford Univ. Press 2019). The discussion leader, was Dr. Dimitri Van Den Meerssche (PhD EUI, LL.M. NYU), an associate fellow at the Asser Institute and a postdoctoral research fellow at Edinburgh Law School (from February 2021 on).
Law and Political Economy Monthly Mentoring “Office Hours” January 15, 2021, 4:00pm EST, via zoom. Office hours are for new & aspiring scholars, graduate and professional students, and others interested in careers in Law and Political Economy. Co-sponsored byThe Association for the Promotion of Political Economy & the Law (APPEAL) and the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project. Participating Faculty: Prof. Lisa Miller, Rutgers, Political Science , Prof. Frank Pasquale, Brooklyn Law School, and Prof. John Whitlow, CUNY School of Law
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 6 Dec. 18, 2020, 3pm EST via Zoom
Professor Jamee Moudud, Sarah Lawrence College Economics, lead a discussion of two short readings on W.E.B. Dubois’s important contributions to institutional economics and political economy. We hope to build on these readings in further sessions exploring questions of law and racial capitalism.
Law and Political Economy- Monthly Mentoring “Office Hours” December 4, 2020 via ZOOM
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 5 November 20, at 3pm EST via Zoom
Carol E. Heim, Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, lead a discussion of Jonathan Levy, "Accounting for Profit and the History of Capital," Critical Historical Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Fall 2014), pp. 171-214 and Carol E. Heim, "Capitalism," in Dictionary of American History, 3rd ed., vol. 2, Cabeza to Demography, ed. Stanley I. Kutler (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003), pp. 41-47.
APPEAL Emerging Scholars Happy Hour & Mentoring Session Oct. 9, 2020 via Zoom
We welcomed students, postdocs, and other emerging scholars interested in law and political economy to join an informal online gathering to explore career interests and strategies. Senior scholars shared their insights and advice. Rather than presentations, this gathering was a chance for emerging scholars to meet each other and to discuss questions, challenges, and opportunities for building careers in academia and beyond. We hope to build a law and political economy community that crosses disciplines and the globe to support the next generation of scholars, policy experts, and change-makers! Facilitated by University of Manchester Professor John Haskell, Sarah Lawrence College Professor Jamee Moudud, and University at Buffalo Professor Martha McCluskey.
APPEAL reading group: What is Capitalism? Session 2 August 27, 2020 via Zoom
This was the second session of our reading group on the meaning and nature of capitalism, with a focus on political economy and law. For this session, we discussed two short essays by economist Joan Robinson: Latter-Day Capitalism, New Left Review July/August 1962, and The Final End of Laissez-Faire, New Left Review, July/August 1964.
Meeting approximately every month, we ask participants to read material circulated in advance and to be prepared to discuss a series of questions about the readings on topics such as the elements of capitalism; temporal dynamics of capitalism; varieties of capitalism; and capitalism, subjectivity, and inequality.
APPEAL online reading group: What is Capitalism? Friday July 31. This first session was hosted by Professor Jamee Moudud of Sarah Lawrence College, with research assistance from Nikos Efstratudakis. The focus readings were: The Nature and Logic of Capitalism by Robert L. Heilbroner (1985) (excerpts) ; and Robert L. Hale, Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State, 38 Political Science Quarterly 470-94 (1923).
APPEAL Discussion via Zoom, Friday, June 26, 2020 on the law, economy, and technology featuring APPEAL members Frank Pasquale and John Haskell. Frank Pasquale will discussed "Rethinking the Political Economy of Automation, " a chapter from his forthcoming book, New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI, due out from Harvard University Press in October 2020. John Haskell will discussed 'Things to Do with 'Digital Tech' as a Law Academic'.
APPEAL Discussion via Zoom June 19, 2020 on the topic of corporate law and political economic power. Featured: Labor's Role in Corporate Governance: The Accountable Capitalism Act by Kimberly Christensen, Sarah Lawrence College Economics Department and The Corporatization of the Arbitration Reform Movement by Eric George, Ph.D in Political Science, York University, Managing Editor, Journal of Law and Political Economy & APPEAL Program Development Director.
APPEAL Happy Hour & Discussion via Zoom-May 22, 2020 of recent APPEAL members’ writing.
Jamee Moudud’s Beyond Pathogenic Politics (short essay, continued from last time month due to technical problems) via YouTube.
Martha McCluskey’s essay on APPEAL as an institution, Lessons from Law and Economics: Building Institutional Power for Political Economic Change (submitted to the new Journal of Law and Political Economy)
Alfredo Saad Filho’s essay, Coronavirus, Crisis, and the End of Neoliberalism,https://www.ppesydney.net/coronavirus-crisis-and-the-end-of-neoliberalism/ .
APPEAL Happy Hour- April 25, 2020 via Zoom- Discussed three short online essays related to COVID-19: Frank Pasquale, Two Timelines of Covid Crisis, at https://lpeblog.org/2020/04/05/two-timelines-of-covid-crisis/ ; Jamee Moudud, Beyond Pathogenic Politics, https://justmoney.org/j-k-moudud-beyond-pathogenic-politics/ and Faith Stevelman and Sarah Haan, Boards in Information Governance, at https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2020/04/10/boards-in-information-governance/
2019 Summer Academy on Law and Money at University of Manchester Law School, July 11-12th, organized by: Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and Law (APPEAL), Law and Money Initiative (LMI), the INET Young Scholars Initiative Finance, & Law and Economics Law Working Group (YSI FLE)
Program
2019 5th Annual APPEALWorkshop: Policy Options for the 21st Century at the University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law
2019 Workshop Program
APPEAL-PERI Workshop: Connecting Ideas and Policies for Change
Hosted and Co-Sponsored by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, June 13-15, 2018
2018 APPEAL-PERI Workshop Program and 2018 Workshop: Lightning Rounds and Breakout Sessions
Engaged Scholarship in Law & Economics Workshop
University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law June 15-16, 2017
2017 Workshop Program
Among the questions for workshop discussion:
- How can we re-orient law and economics toward democratic justice and inclusive prosperity? Are universalistic programs (such as “Medicare for All” and “Free College”) the natural successors to the ACA and income-based repayment programs?
- How can we further develop and support connections among legal academics, lawyers, policymakers, and economists whose work pushes beyond neoliberal boundaries?
- How can we promote better legal rules in response to systemic problems of inequality, exclusion, and insecurity?
Conference Panels
January 2017 Higher Education Finance and Student Debt
Assoc. of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, Socioeconomics Session, San Francisco, CA
June 2015 Higher Education Finance
Hosted and co-sponsored by the University at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York.
See program here.
June 2015 New Thinking in Law and Economics
Co-sponsored by the University at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York.
See program here.
January 2015 Cost-Benefit Analysis
Assoc. of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, Socioeconomics Session, Washington, DC
May 2014 Critiquing Cost-Benefit Analysis of Financial Regulation. Hosted by George Washington University Law School’s Center for Law, Economics and Finance (C-LEAF); Co-Sponsored by The Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and the Law (APPEAL), SUNY Buffalo Law School, Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), Better Markets, and the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR).
See program here.
June 2013 Toward Law and Political Economy: Transforming Unequal Power through Heterodox Theory
Law and Society Annual Meeting, Boston, MA