Territorial Labor and American Empire: A History of Democratic Avoidance and Constitutional Enervati

Please join the LPE Project for a lunch talk with Professor Jedidiah Kroncke, on “Territorial Labor and American Empire: A History of Democratic Avoidance and Constitutional Enervation”. 

Much recent attention has been given to acknowledging the full historical scope of the American empire and its legal foundations. This talk expands on this resurgent interest by focusing on a critical dimension of this acknowledgment: the history of territorial labor, long central to the political economy of the American empire. By explicating the role and regulation of territorial labor, we can achieve a more complete picture of the American empire, as well as understand its evolving pursuit of new legal forms to project national power while avoiding democratic accountability. Ultimately, the conditions of territorial labor reflect the enervated nature of American economic citizenship at large and present lessons that are increasingly applicable to broader sections of American life under conditions of modern economic globalization.

Professor Kroncke is the author of The Futility of Law and Development: China and the Dangers of Exporting American Law (Oxford University Press). In this work, he explores the role of U.S.-China relations in the formation of modern American legal internationalism and the decline of American legal comparativism. Professor Kroncke will be in conversation with YLS Profossor Aslı Ü. Bâli. 

This event will be in a hybrid format. Register to attend in person. Register to attend virtually.