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Assumptions about the human condition shape the legal rules and institutions that structure the economy and state. By re-centering law on a clearer understanding of the human subject, vulnerability theory can strengthen law and political economy (LPE) efforts to address accelerating threats to democracy, equality, and the environment.

This op-ed originally ran in The Hill.  While hurricanes like Florence are technically “natural” disasters, the Carolinas are experiencing the ways that the distinctly human-made problems of social and economic inequality reinforce and aggravate storm damage. Exhibit A is the catastrophic breaches and spills from the enormous manure “lagoons” located on North Carolina’s many factory-scale hog […]

This op-ed originally ran in The Hill. Did you read the fine print when you signed up for your credit card, a loan on your car, or a new checking account? Chances are, you missed an important provision called a “forced arbitration clause.” This provision says that if the bank or credit card company has made […]

The natural gas industry’s campaign against increased federal oversight of shale gas development has recently produced a spurt of “dirty science” minimizing the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”  The University at Buffalo, the branch of the State University of New York where I teach, recently launched its new “Shale Resources and Society Institute” […]