1932

Abstract

Scholars conventionally distinguish between liberal and illiberal, or authoritarian, legal orders. Such distinctions are useful but often simplistic and misleading, as many regimes are governed by plural, dual, or hybrid legal institutions, principles, and practices. This is no less true for the United States, which often is misidentified as the paradigmatic liberal constitutional order. Historical and critical scholarship, including recent studies of law under racial capitalism, provide reason to identify American law as a dual state in which legal forms that govern property ownership, contract relations, and civil liberties of free citizens differ from the more illiberal, authoritarian legal forms that rule over subaltern populations, particularly racialized, low-wage workers, Indigenous populations, the poor, immigrants, and women. This dual state, we argue, did undergo changes to adopt more procedurally liberal, professional, overtly deracialized legal forms after World War II, but these changes masked more than tamed the continuing illiberal, authoritarian violence that targeted marginalized citizens. While constantly changing, the American legal system is best understood not as a singular liberal order but instead as a hybrid system of mutually constitutive liberal and illiberal and authoritarian legal practices.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111720-012237
2021-10-13
2025-02-10
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/lawsocsci/17/1/annurev-lawsocsci-111720-012237.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111720-012237&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Alexander M. 2012. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness New York: New Press
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Anderson E 2017. Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk About It) Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Apostolidis P. 2018. A Fight for Time: Migrant Day Laborers and the Politics of Precarity New York: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Balko R. 2013. Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces New York: Public Aff.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Beck U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity London: Sage Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Beckett K. 1997. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics New York: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Beckett K, Herbert S. 2009. Banished: The New Social Control in Urban America Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Beckett K, Herbert S 2010. Penal boundaries: banishment and the expansion of punishment. Law Soc. Inq. 35:11–38
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Berrey E, Nelson RL, Nielsen LB. 2017. Rights on Trial: How Workforce Discrimination Law Perpetuates Inequality Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Blackmon D. 2008. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II New York: Doubleday
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Bradwell v. State 83 U.S. 16 1872.)
  12. Buchanan A 1993. Secession and nationalism. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy RE Gordon, P Pettit 586–96 Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Cacho LM. 2012. Social Death: Racialized Rightslessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected New York: NYU Press
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Calavita K. 1992. Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the INS New York: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Chua L. 2014. Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Chua L. 2019. Legal mobilization and authoritarianism. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 15:355–76
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Churchill W. 1992. American Indian self-governance: fact, fantasy, and prospects for the future. American Indian Policy: Self Governance and Economic Development LH Legters, FJ Lyden 149–64 Westport, CT: Greenwood
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Cover R. 1986. Violence and the word. Yale Law J 95:1601–22
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Dahl R. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Daniels R. 2004. Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 New York: Hill & Wang
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Davenport C. 2005. Understanding covert repressive action: the case of the U.S. government against the Republic of New Africa. J. Confl. Resolut. 49:1120–40
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Davenport C. 2012. When democracies kill: reflections from the US, India, and Northern Ireland. Int. Area Stud. Rev. 15:13–20
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Dawson MC, Francis MM. 2016. Black politics and the neoliberal racial order. Public Cult. 28:123–62
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Dayan C. 2013. The Law Is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  25. De Genova N. 2004. The legal production of Mexican/migrant “illegality. .” Lat. Stud. 2:160–85
    [Google Scholar]
  26. De Genova N. 2010. The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Deloria V Jr., Lytle C. 1984. The Nations Within. The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty New York: Pantheon Books
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Du Bois WEB. 1935. Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America1860–1880 New York: Russell & Russell
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Dudas JR. 2001. Of savages and sovereigns: tribal self-administration and the legal construction of dependence. Stud. Law Politics Soc 23:3–44
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Dudas JR. 2004. Law at the American frontier. Law Soc. Inq. 29:4859–89
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Edelman L. 2016. Working Law: Courts, Corporations, and Symbolic Civil Rights Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Ehrenreich B, Hochschild AE. 2003. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy New York: Metropolitan Books
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Epp CR. 2010. Making Rights Real: Activists, Bureaucrats, and the Creation of the Legalistic State Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Epp CR, Maynard-Moody S, Haider-Markel DP. 2014. Pulled Over: How Police Define Race and Citizenship Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Feldman L. 2004. Citizens Without Shelter: Homelessness, Democracy, and Political Exclusion Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Fraenkel E. 1941. The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship New York: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Francis MM. 2014. Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Fraser N. 2014. Behind Marx's hidden abode: for an expanded conception of capitalism. New Left Rev 86:55–72
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Fraser N. 2016. Expropriation and exploitation in racialized capitalism: a reply to Michael Dawson. Crit. Hist. Stud. 3:1163–78
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Frymer P. 2017. Building American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Gallagher ME. 2017. Authoritarian Legality in China: Law, Workers, and the State Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Getman JG. 2016. The Supreme Court on Unions: Why Labor Law Is Failing American Workers Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Gilliom J. 2001. Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Gilmore RW. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Ginsburg T, Huq AZ, Versteeg M. 2018. The coming demise of liberal constitutionalism?. Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 85:239–55
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Ginsburg T, Moustafa T 2008. Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Glasius M. 2018. What authoritarianism is…and is not. Int. Aff. 94:3515–33
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Gleeson S. 2010. Labor rights for all? The role of undocumented immigrant status for worker claims making. Law Soc. Inq. 35:3561–602
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Glick B. 1989. War at Home: Covert Action against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It Boston: South End
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Go J. 2020. The imperial origins of American policing: militarization and imperial feedback in the early 20th century. Am. J. Sociol. 125:51193–254
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Goldberg DT. 2002. The Racial State London: Blackwell
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Gordon L 2006. Internal colonialism and gender. Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History A Stoler 427–51 Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Gottschalk M. 2008. Hiding in plain sight: American politics and the carceral state. Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 11:235–60
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Gourevitch A. 2015. Police work: the centrality of labor repression in American political history. Am. Political Sci. Rev. 13:3762–73
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Greenwald G, Hussain M. 2014. Meet the Muslim-American leaders the FBI and NSA have been spying on. The Intercept July 8. https://theintercept.com/2014/07/09/under-surveillance/
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Gustafson K. 2009. The criminalization of poverty. J. Crim. Law Criminol. 99:643–716
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Gustafson K. 2011. Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and The Criminalization of Poverty New York: NYU Press
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Hadden SE. 2001. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas Harvard Hist. Stud Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Haney-López I. 1997. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race New York: NYU Press
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Harris A. 2016. A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor New York: Russell Sage Found.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Hartmann H. 1976. Capitalism, patriarchy, and segregation by sex. Signs 1:3137–69
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Hartney C, Vuong L. 2009. Created equal: racial and ethnic disparities in the US criminal justice system Rep. Natl. Counc. Crime Delinq. Madison, WI: www.nccdglobal.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/created-equal.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Hartsock N. 1983. Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism New York: Longman
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Hartz L. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America New York: Harcourt Brace
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Hayes C. 2017. A Colony in a Nation New York: W.W. Norton
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Hendley K. 2017. Everyday Law in Russia Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Hernández CCG. 2018. Deconstructing crimmigration. UC Davis Law Rev. 52:197–253
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Hilbink L. 2007. Judges Beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Hinton E. 2016. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Jayasuriya K. 2001. The exception becomes the norm: law and regimes of exception in East Asia. Asian-Pac. Law Policy J 2:1108–24
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Kahraman F. 2017. Claiming labor rights as human rights: legal mobilization at the European Court of Human Rights PhD Diss., Univ. Wash. Seattle, WA:
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Kato D. 2012. Constitutionalizing anarchy: liberalism, lynching, and the law. J. Hate Stud. 10:143–72
    [Google Scholar]
  73. King DS, Smith RM. 2005. Racial orders in American political development. Am. Political Sci. Rev. 99:175–92
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Kolin A. 2016. Political Economy of Labor Repression in the United States Lanham, MD: Lexington Books
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Lee S. 2014. The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right New York: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Lepore J. 2020. The invention of the police. The New Yorker July 20. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Marechal N. 2015. First they came for the poor: surveillance of welfare recipients as an uncontested practice. Media Commun 3:356–67
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Massey DS. 1990. American apartheid: segregation and the making of the underclass. Am. J. Sociol. 96:2329–57
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Massoud MF. 2013. Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  80. McCann MW 1989. Equal protection for social inequality: race and class in American constitutional ideology. Judging the Constitution: Critical Essays on Judicial Lawmaking M McCann, G Houseman 191–224 Boston: Little, Brown
    [Google Scholar]
  81. McCann MW. 1994. Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  82. McCann MW, Lovell G. 2020. Union by Law: Filipino American Labor Activists, Rights Radicalism, and Racial Capitalism Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  83. McWilliams C. 1939. Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California Boston: Little, Brown:
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Mednicoff D. 2018. Trump may believe in the rule of law, just not the one understood by most American lawyers. The Conversation June 5. https://theconversation.com/trump-may-believe-in-the-rule-of-law-just-not-the-one-understood-by-most-american-lawyers-97757
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Meierhenrich J. 2008. The Legacies of Law: Long-Run Consequences of Legal Development in South Africa1652–2000 Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Meierhenrich J. 2018. The Remnant of the Rechtsstaat: An Ethnography of Nazi Law Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Melamed J. 2011. Represent and Destroy: Rationalizing Violence in the New Racial Capitalism Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Melamed J. 2015. Racial capitalism. J. Crit. Ethn. Stud. Assoc. 1:176–85
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Merry SE. 1988. Legal pluralism. Law Soc. Rev. 22:869–96
    [Google Scholar]
  90. Merry SE. 1991. Law and colonialism. Law Soc. Rev. 25:4889–922
    [Google Scholar]
  91. Merry SE. 2016. The rule of law and authoritarian rule: legal politics in Sudan. Law Soc. Inq. 41:2465–70
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Mickey R. 2015. Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944–1972 Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  93. Mills CW. 1997. The Racial Contract Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Mills CW. 2008. Racial liberalism. PMLA 123:51380–97
    [Google Scholar]
  95. Moustafa T. 2007. The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  96. Moustafa T. 2008. Law and resistance in authoritarian states: the judicialization of politics in Egypt. See Ginsburg & Moustafa 2008:132–55
    [Google Scholar]
  97. Muhammad KG. 2010. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  98. Murakawa N. 2014. The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America New York: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  99. Murakawa N, Beckett K. 2010. The penology of racial innocence: the erasure of racism in the study and practice of punishment. Law Soc. Rev. 44:3/4695–730
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Ngai MM. 2004. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  101. Nonet P, Selznick P. 2001. Law and Society in Transition: Toward Responsive Law Piscataway, NJ: Trans. Books
    [Google Scholar]
  102. Ogletree J Jr., Sarat A 2006. From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America New York: NYU Press
    [Google Scholar]
  103. Omi M, Winant H. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s New York: Routledge, 2nd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  104. Orren K. 1991. Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law and Liberal Development in the United States Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  105. Pateman C. 1988. The Sexual Contract Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  106. Piven FF, Cloward RA. 1993. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare New York: Vintage Books
    [Google Scholar]
  107. Plessy v. Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 1896.)
  108. Provine DM, Doty R. 2011. The criminalization of immigrants as a racial project. J. Contemp. Crim. Justice 27:3261–77
    [Google Scholar]
  109. Rajah J. 2012. Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse, and Legitimacy in Singapore Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  110. Rana A 2010. The Two Faces of American Freedom Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  111. Rana A 2012. Freedom struggles and the limits of constitutional continuity. Md. Law Rev. 71:1015–51
    [Google Scholar]
  112. Reddy C. 2011. Freedom with Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  113. Rhode DL 1989. Equal protection: gender and justice. Judging the Constitution: Critical Essays on Judicial Lawmaking M McCann, G Houseman 265–86 Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman
    [Google Scholar]
  114. Robinson CJ. 2000. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition Chapel Hill: Univ. N.C. Press, 2nd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  115. Roediger DR. 1991. Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class New York: Verso
    [Google Scholar]
  116. Roediger DR. 2005. Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White New York: Basic Books
    [Google Scholar]
  117. Rogin MP 1974. Liberal society and the Indian question. The Politics and Society Reader I Katznelson, G Adams, P Brenner, A Wolfe 9–52 Philadelphia: McKay Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  118. Rothstein R. 2017. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America New York: Liveright
    [Google Scholar]
  119. Scheingold S. 1984. The Politics of Law and Order: Street Crime and Public Policy New York: Longman
    [Google Scholar]
  120. Schrecker E. 1998. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America New York: Little, Brown:
    [Google Scholar]
  121. Schumpeter J. 1943. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy London: Allen & Unwin
    [Google Scholar]
  122. Simon J. 2006. Governing through Crime Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  123. Smith RM. 1997. Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  124. Snyder FG. 1981. Colonialism and legal form: the creation of “customary law” in Senegal. J. Legal Plur. Unoff. Law 13:1949–90
    [Google Scholar]
  125. Solnit R. 2019. President Trump is at war with the rule of law This won't end well. The Guardian, Oct. 9. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/09/trump-government-executive-branch-rebecca-solnit
    [Google Scholar]
  126. Soss J, Weaver V. 2017. Police are our government: politics, political science, and the policing of race-class subjugated communities. Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 20:565–91
    [Google Scholar]
  127. Swenson G. 2018. Legal pluralism in theory and practice. Int. Stud. Rev. 20:438–62
    [Google Scholar]
  128. The Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia 30 U.S. 1 1831.)
  129. Tian DK. 2019. The dual states of America. Society 56:7–14
    [Google Scholar]
  130. Tushnet M. 1981. The American Law of Slavery, 1810–1860 Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  131. Tushnet M. 2015. Authoritarian constitutionalism. Cornell Law Rev 100:391–461
    [Google Scholar]
  132. Urofsky M, Finkelman P. 2011. A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States 1–2 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  133. Urribarri RAS. 2011. Courts between democracy and hybrid authoritarianism: evidence from the Venezuelan Supreme Court. Law Soc. Inq. 36:4854–84
    [Google Scholar]
  134. Vinel JC. 2013. The Employee: A Political History Philadelphia: Univ. Pa. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  135. von Benda-Beckmann K, Turner B 2018. Legal pluralism, social theory, and the state. J. Leg. Plur. Unoff. Law 50:3255–74
    [Google Scholar]
  136. Wacquant L. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  137. Wasem RE. 2020. More than a wall: the rise and fall of US asylum and refugee policy. J. Migr. Hum. Secur. 8:3246–65
    [Google Scholar]
  138. Weil D. 2014. The Fissured Workplace: How Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  139. Weiner MS. 2006. Americans Without Law: The Racial Boundaries of Citizenship New York: NYU Press
    [Google Scholar]
  140. Whiting S. 2017. Authoritarian “rule of law” and regime legitimacy. Comp. Political Stud. 50:141907–40
    [Google Scholar]
  141. Whitman JQ. 2017. Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  142. Williams E. 1994. Capitalism and Slavery Chapel Hill: Univ. N.C. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  143. Winant H. 2001. The World Is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy since World War II New York: Basic Books
    [Google Scholar]
  144. Worcester v. Georgia 31 U.S. 515 1832.)
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111720-012237
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error