Institutional Design Theory and Public Law: Seminar

Professor Matthew C. Stephenson

Fall 2011, Thursdays 5:00-7:00 (Lewis 202)
Course Description
The goal of this seminar is to introduce students to a body of legal scholarship that seeks to
apply ideas and insights from the social sciences (particularly political science and economics) to a
range of questions concerning the optimal design of legal and political institutions. Each week, we
will read and discuss contemporary legal academic scholarship in this genre.
Assignments
Students are expected to read all the assigned material (approximately 150-200 pages per session)
carefully before each meeting, and to come each week prepared to be an active participant in our
seminar discussions.
There is no written assignment for the first class meeting on September 15th. In 8 of the 11
remaining sessions, each student should write a short reaction paper based on that weeks readings.
(You can choose which of the weeks you will turn in a paper, and you do not need to let me know in
advance.) The reaction paper should be 3-5 pages long (double-spaced, normal font). You have a
great deal of freedom in what you choose to write, but ideally your reaction papers should raise
issues and questions that might serve as grist for discussions in our weekly meetings. The weekly
reaction papers are due by 4:00 p.m. on the Wednesday before our weekly meeting. Please email
them both to me (mstephen@law.harvard.edu) and my assistant Kaitlin Burroughs
(kburroughs@law.harvard.edu).
Students who are interested in writing a longer paper, based on themes and topics covered in the
seminar, are encouraged to enroll in the spring semester writing workshop. If this is something you
are interested in doing, please let me know and Ill be happy to talk with you during office hours, or
by appointment, about your paper topic ideas.
Reading Materials
The reading packet (in three volumes) is available from the Distribution Center. All the assigned
papers are also available on-line via Lexis, Westlaw, or Hein Online.

Course Schedule and Reading Assignments

Introduction: Institutional Design and Legal Institutions

Week 1 (Sept. 15): Comparative Institutional Competence

Edward L. Rubin, The New Legal Process, the Synthesis of Discourse, and the Microanalysis of
Institutions, 109 HARV. L. REV. 1393 (1996)
Neil K. Komesar, Taking Institutions Seriously: Introduction to a Strategy for Constitutional Analysis,
51 U. CHI. L. REV. 366 (1984)
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule, Interpretation and Institutions, 101 MICH. L. REV. 885
(2003)
Richard A. Posner, Reply: The Institutional Dimensions of Statutory and Constitutional Interpretation,
101 MICH. L. REV. 952 (2003)
Cass R. Sunstein & Adrian Vermeule, Interpretive Theory in its Infancy: A Reply to Posner, 101
MICH. L. REV. 972 (2003)

Part I: Institutional Design and Democratic Government

Week 2 (Sept. 22): Political Competition and Majority Rule

Richard Pildes & Samuel Issacharoff, Politics as Markets: Partisan Lockups of the Democratic
Process, 50 STAN. L. REV. 643 (1998)
Richard L. Hasen, The Political Market Metaphor and Election Law: A Comment on Issacharoff and
Pildes, 50 STAN. L. REV. 719 (1998)
Matthew C. Stephenson, Optimal Political Control of the Bureaucracy, 107 MICH. L. REV. 53
(2008)

Week 3 (Sept. 29): Separation of Powers and Political Accountability

Christopher R. Berry & Jacob E. Gersen, The Unbundled Executive, 75 U. CHI. L. REV. 1385
(2008)
Steven G. Calabresi & Nicholas Terrell, The Fatally Flawed Theory of the Unbundled Executive, 93
MINN. L. REV. 1696 (2009)
Jide O. Nzelibe & Matthew C. Stephenson, Complementary Constraints: Separation of Powers,
Rational Voting, and Constitutional Design, 123 HARV. L. REV. 617 (2010)

Week 4 (Oct. 6): Promoting Democratic Deliberation

Mark Seidenfeld, A Civic Republican Justification for the Bureaucratic State, 105 HARV. L. REV.
1511 (1992)
Elizabeth Garrett & Adrian Vermeule, Institutional Design of a Thayerian Congress, 50 DUKE L.J.
1277 (2001)
William N. Eskridge, Jr. & John Ferejohn, Constitutional Horticulture: Deliberation-Respecting
Judicial Review, 87 TEX. L. REV. 1273 (2009)
2

Week 5 (Oct. 13): Legislative Process and the Prevention of Legislative Capture

John O. McGinnis & Michael B. Rappaport, Supermajority Rules as Constitutional Solution, 40

WM. & MARY L. REV. 365 (1999)
Elizabeth Garrett, A Fiscal Constitution with Supermajority Voting Rules, 40 WM. & MARY L. REV.
471 (1999)
Jacob E. Gersen & Eric A. Posner, Timing Rules and Legal Institutions, 121 HARV. L. REV. 543
(2007)

Part II: Institutional Design and Constrained Government

Week 6 (Oct. 20): Protecting Political Minorities

Heather K. Gerken, Second-Order Diversity, 118 HARV. L. REV. 1099 (2005)

Daryl J. Levinson, Rights and Votes (2011 draft)

Week 7 (Oct. 27): The Problem of Credible Pre-Commitment

Daryl J. Levinson, Parchment and Politics: The Puzzle of Constitutional Commitment, 124 HARV. L.
REV. 657 (2011)
Josh Chafetz, The Political Animal and the Ethics of Constitutional Commitment, 124 HARV. L. REV.
F. 1 (2011)
Bruce Ackerman, The Emergency Constitution, 113 YALE L.J. 1029 (2004)
Adrian Vermeule, Self-Defeating Proposals: Ackerman on Emergency Powers, 75 FORDHAM L. REV.
631 (2006)

Week 8 (Nov. 3): Judicial Enforcement of Constitutional Restraints

Frank B. Cross, Institutions and Enforcement of the Bill of Rights, 85 CORNELL L. REV. 1529
(2000)
Matthew C. Stephenson, The Price of Public Action: Constitutional Doctrine and the Judicial
Manipulation of Legislative Enactment Costs, 118 YALE L.J. 2 (2008)

Part III: Institutional Design and Smart Government

Week 9 (Nov. 10): Rational Information Acquisition

Anne Joseph OConnell, The Architecture of Smart Intelligence: Structuring and Overseeing Agencies in
the Post-9/11 World, 94 CAL. L. REV. 1655 (2006)
Matthew C. Stephenson, Information Acquisition and Institutional Design, 124 HARV. L. REV.
1422 (2011)

Week 10 (Nov. 17): Learning, Experimentation, and Innovation

Yair Listokin, Learning Through Policy Variation, 118 YALE L.J. 480 (2008)
Jacob E. Gersen, Temporary Legislation, 74 U. CHI. L. REV. 247 (2007)
Brian Galle & Joseph Leahy, Laboratories of Democracy? Policy Innovations in Decentralized
Governments, 58 EMORY L.J. 1333 (2009)

Week 11 (Dec. 1): Combating Cognitive Bias

Mark Seidenfeld, Cognitive Loafing, Social Conformity, and Judicial Review of Agency Rulemaking, 87
CORNELL L. REV. 486 (2002)
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski & Cynthia R. Farina, Cognitive Psychology and Optimal Government Design, 87
CORNELL L. REV. 549 (2002)
William N. Eskridge, Jr. & John Ferejohn, Structuring Lawmaking to Reduce Cognitive Bias: A
Critical View, 87 CORNELL L. REV. 616 (2002)

Conclusion: Institutional Complexity

Week 12 (Dec. 8): System Effects and Unintended Consequences

Adrian Vermeule, Forward: System Effects and the Constitution, 123 HARV. L. REV. 4 (2009)
William J. Stuntz, The Political Constitution of Criminal Justice, 119 HARV. L. REV. 780 (2006)
David Alan Sklansky, Killer Seatbelts and Criminal Procedure, 119 HARV. L. REV. F. 56 (2006)
Robert Weisberg, First Causes and the Dynamics of Criminal Justice, 119 HARV. L. REV. F. 131
(2006)
William J. Stuntz, Of Seatbelts and Sentences, Supreme Court Justices and Spending Patterns
Understanding the Unraveling of American Criminal Justice, 119 HARV. L. REV. F. 148 (2006)