John A. Ferejohn

Courses

• Constitutional Theory of Emergency Powers

  The seminar will discuss from in a historical perspective models of constitutionalization of emergency power, specifically: The Roman Dictatorship; Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the revival of the constitutional emergency power in the republican tradition; Locke and the King's prerogative; Montesquieu, the "veil on liberty" and the "suspension" of the constitution during the French Revolution [the Revolutionary Government]; Lincoln and the suspension of habeas corpus during the American Civil War; Carl Schmitt and the Diktaturgewalt of the art. 48 of the Weimar Constitution; De Gaulle and the art. 16 of the constitution of the French 5th Republic; the art. 115a of the Bonner Grundgesetz; emergency power in India, Israel, Northern Ireland, and Latin America. We will consider, moreover, the recent American debate: Guantanamo and after.

• Courts: Ancient and Modern

  The course will explore various models of courts and judicial decision making during the ancient period (The Athenian People's Court, the Roman Iudex), courts in the medieval and early modern era (such as the French Parlements, early English common law courts), and modern courts and various (modern) models and theories of judicial decision making.

• Seminar on Federalism: Law, Policy and History

  How should power be divided between a central government and subcentral jurisdictions (states, provinces, lander, cantons, whatever they might be called) led by officials elected by, and responsive to, those jurisdictions’ residents? This is the central question common to all federal systems of government, ranging from the seventeenth century Holy Roman Empire to modern India. The question has provoked civil wars as well as peaceful secessions. It has also implicated the most basic human rights, ranging from the right of westerners to exclude slavery in antebellum America to the right of Nigerians from ethnic backgrounds different from their neighbors to travel in provinces where they are not “indigenes.” Legal theorists and social scientists have argued that getting the answer to this central question right could promote desirable value pluralism, economic efficiency, and democracy. This course will provide an overview of five fundamental sets of legal and policy issues springing from this central question of divided power including (1) secession, nullification, and subcentral jurisdictions' power more generally to resist the central government; (2) division of legislative competences between subcentral and central government over “local” and “national” topics; (3) judicial and non-judicial enforcement of the rules defining such divisions of power; (4) the protection of commerce and individual mobility between subcentral jurisdictions; and (5) subcentral governments’ implementation of national rules, through either or both contract with, or command from, the central government. We will examine these five issues by examining constitutional ground rules, political practices, and judicial decisions from the United States, Canada, India, Nigeria, Germany, and the European Union. In addition, we will read some recent economic and political science scholarship associated with each of the four issues, including work by Barry Weingast, Jonathan Rodden, Daniel Treisman, Jenna Bednar, and Robert Inman and Daniel Rubinfeld. Specific issues include the debates over the national government’s power to regulate slavery in antebellum United States; the international controversy over secession of Quebec and Kosovo and the right of secession provided by constitutions like Ethiopia’s; the legal and political fights over European nations’ barring aliens who are also European citizens from getting aid to study or work; the power of states to “nullify” the Fugitive Slave Act; and the comparative powers of the modern U.S. and Canadian governments to regulate the environmental quality of intrastate waters.