LPE and Social Movements – LPE Project

Organizing Towards a New Vision of Community Justice

Kate Redburn — Thu, 09 May 2019 11:00:58 +0000

NB: This post is part of an ongoing series on LPE & Social Movements. For the framing pieces, see here and here. The current criminal legal system has consistently weaponized the role of “the community” in its proceedings – often claiming that decisions have been made to achieve justice for “the community” or to protect “community” safety. As increased awareness of the incarceration crisis across...

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Debtor Organizing Against Neoliberalism

Kate Redburn — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 11:00:43 +0000

This post is part of an ongoing series on LPE & Social Movements. For the framing pieces, see here and here. Neoliberalism is in crisis. For the first time in decades, alternatives of both terrifying and exhilarating varieties are on the table. The more democratic and humane alternative will only prevail if well organized social movements directly challenge the ruling class’s material base of...

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Social Movements in the Struggle for Redistribution

Kate Redburn — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 11:39:11 +0000

The idea that social movements should be central to progressive agendas is appealing; I respond with two questions that aim push this discussion further. First, it is important to explicitly consider what constitutes a social movement - which voices rise to the top, who sets the agenda, and who garners resources? Second, and relatedly, legal realism teaches us that law exists in the foreground and background to shape our capacity to bargain, strategize, and organize. I wonder how lawyers and legal strategy constitute the redistributive imagination of left organizations?

Coming of Age at the End of History

Kate Redburn — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 11:14:46 +0000

This post is part of an ongoing series on LPE & Social Movements. For the framing pieces, see here and here. In 1989, in the midst of the collapse of the Soviet Union and just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama argued, famously, that we had reached “the End of History.’ Echoing Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that ‘there is no alternative’ to neoliberal capitalism...

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Movement Visions for a Renewed Left Legalism

Kate Redburn — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 11:00:07 +0000

This post is part of an ongoing series on LPE & Social Movements. In this moment of crisis for the rule of law, a number of thinkers on the left have prescribed new strategies for progressives to shift reigning ideas about constitutionalism and the law. Jedediah Purdy, for example, has argued that part of the answer is to “reclaim the Constitution” by articulating visions of how constitutional...

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Movement Visions for a Renewed Left Politics

Kate Redburn — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 12:00:42 +0000

This post opens a series on LPE & Social Movements. When members of the Sunrise Movement confronted Senator Dianne Feinstein ten days ago, they demonstrated the renewed vitality of an old force in democratic politics: organized young people bringing bold new visions to complex social problems. In the video, we see the power of movement participants to transform how we think and dream.

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