//  9/6/17  //  Latest Developments

Cross-posted from the Global Anti-Corruption Blog

By Matthew Stephenson (Harvard Law School)

Editor's note: We don't usually post announcements, but believe that this conference may be of interest to readers interested in the Emoluments Clauses litigation and issues of kleptoracy under President Trump.

On Saturday, September 23rd, Harvard Law School, in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center, will host a one-day conference entitled “Populist Plutocrats: Lessons from Around the World.” The conference will focus on an important and dangerous phenomenon: political leaders who successfully exploit anti-elite sentiment in order to achieve power, but who, once in office, seem primarily interested in enriching themselves, along with a relatively small circle of family members and cronies. Many Americans might find that this description accurately captures President Trump, who campaigned as a populist, but who is governing as more as a “crony capitalist” plutocrat—or, some would allege, as a quasi-kleptocrat.

Americans seeking to understand the challenges our country is now facing might do well to look abroad. After all, while Trump’s leveraging of the power of the presidency for personal enrichment—enabled by anti-elite sentiment among his supporters—may well be unprecedented in modern U.S. history, it is not, alas, unprecedented in the modern world. Indeed, while every country’s experience is different, and we must always be careful not to overstate the parallels, many other democracies have had leaders who could be described as populist plutocrats, or even populist kleptocrats, in something like the Trump mold. While such resemblances have occasionally been noted (see, for example, hereherehere, and here), but there has not yet been much of a sustained attempt to understand populist plutocracy/kleptocracy and closely related phenomena in comparative perspective. The September 23 conference will seek to initiate more sustained exploration of these issues, and will also provide an opportunity for experts from other parts of the world–who have more experience with political leaders who combine populist rhetoric with self-interested profiteering and cronyism–to offer a distinct perspective on the challenges the United States is currently facing.

The conference will feature the following panels:

The conference is free and open to the public. More information, as well as a registration page, is available here. For more background on the motivation of the conference, Professor Zingales and I also have a short piece on the Stigler Center blog.)

For those who are interested but cannot make it, the conference will be live-streamed and video-recorded; more information on the live-stream will be available soon.


The SDNY Debacle And The Supreme Court

6/20/20  //  Quick Reactions

The Trump administration's apparent desire to force out the U.S. Attorney for SDNY could have implications for several major Supreme Court cases this term.

Leah Litman

Michigan Law School

Versus Trump: Uncle Charlie's Comity Hour

10/10/19  //  Commentary

On this week’s Versus Trump, Jason and Charlie discuss the major recent decision dismissing the President's attempt to block his accounting firm from turning over his tax returns to the Manhattan DA. Listen now!

Charlie Gerstein

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Jason Harrow

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Versus Trump: Can You Hear The Whistle Blowing?

9/25/19  //  In-Depth Analysis

On this week's episode of Versus Trump, Charlie and Jason discuss the legal stakes of the fight over what Trump said to the President of Ukraine and the related whistleblower complaint. A lot happened between when they recorded the episode and when it's being posted, but we still think it's a useful primer on the legal questions in this dispute. Listen now!

Charlie Gerstein

Gerstein Harrow LLP

Jason Harrow

Gerstein Harrow LLP