At the American Society for Legal History annual meeting recently, I had the pleasure of chairing a panel on Law and Ideology in the National Security State. All of the panelists presented work that intersects with past discussions on this blog, so I've organized a roundtable to bring the panel to Balkinization.We’ll update with links to the contributions.
Over the next few days, I will post contributions by Aziz Rana, Cornell Law School; Jeremy Kessler, Columbia Law School; Anne Kornhauser, Department of History, CUNY; and the panel commentator Christopher Capozzola, Department of History, MIT.
These scholars all see American constitutionalism as deeply affected by the United States role in the world. They differ in the ways they periodize global influence, and in the kinds of outside influences that matter. And though national security is the conceptual frame for the panel, these contributions -- explicitly or implicitly -- work with different ideas about what national security was thought to require, and even what it is that American constitutionalism was securing. Together, however, they make clear that scholars examining the path of American constitutional history must set the story in the context of the U.S. role in the world.
Jeremy Kessler on The Myth of the Strong American State
Aziz Rana on Empire and the Creedal Constitution in the Philippines
Anne Kornhauser on German Émigré Intellectuals and the Struggle Over the Emerging National Security State
