Emily Zackin
Biographic Data
| ID | 1052842 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emily Zackin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emily |
| FAMILY NAME | Zackin |
| SIGNATURE | ZACKIN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johns Hopkins University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Telling Constitutional Stories
Crises of Authority
Constitutional scholars have long observed that the term “constitutional crisis” is overused. Pundits and scholars routinely use it to describe constitutional developments that they view as normatively undesirable. But doing so may hurt our ability to recognize them. We use a comparative and historical perspective to call attention to the worst-case scenario of constitutional breakdown. This scenario, which we will refer to as a “constitutional c…
Rethinking Blaisdell
In the landmark case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a state-level debt relief statute that was quite similar to those it had long deemed to violate the Contracts Clause. The dissent even argued that the Contracts Clause was written precisely to prohibit this type of state legislation. Rather than seeking to understand or characterize this doctrinal shift, as most work on Blaisde…
Broken Trust
Stephen M. Griffin has helped redefine the study of constitutional development by calling scholars’ attention to transformations in the fundamental structures and processes of governance. These changes often escape notice because they tend to occur outside the courts and without a formal announcement, yet Griffin demonstrates that to ignore them is to miss crucial features of our constitutional order and its development. His most recent book, Bro…
Constitutions Unentrenched
T his article highlights a gap between a great deal of constitutional theory and a great deal of the practice of democratic constitution-making. Drawing on data from democratic national and state constitutions, we challenge the consensus among constitutional theorists that a central purpose of constitutionalism is the entrenchment (the fortification against future change) of broad principles. The empirical reality is that the majority of democrat…
The Civic Constitution
What's Happened to American Federalism
To Change the Fundamental Law of the State”
As the United States industrialized, its state constitutions began to include protections for laborers. In this article, I describe the origins of these constitutional provisions and ask why labor organizations and other reformers pursued their inclusion in state constitutions. I argue that they saw state constitutions as a vehicle to prompt reluctant legislatures to pass protective statutes, to entrench existing protections against future legisl…
Popular Constitutionalism's Hard When You're Not Very Popular
Through a case study of the early American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this article examines the empirical ramifications of constitutional scholars' recent exhortations to "take the Constitution away from the courts" in order to promote democratic deliberation about constitutional meaning. While it is now one of the most prominent examples of a litigation-based interest group, the ACLU began its existence demonstrating a commitment to constitut…
Popular Constitutionalism's Hard When You're Not Very Popular
Through a case study of the early American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this article examines the empirical ramifications of constitutional scholars' recent exhortations to "take the Constitution away from the courts" in order to promote democratic deliberation about constitutional meaning. While it is now one of the most prominent examples of a litigation-based interest group, the ACLU began its existence demonstrating a commitment to constitut…
Constitutions Unentrenched
T his article highlights a gap between a great deal of constitutional theory and a great deal of the practice of democratic constitution-making. Drawing on data from democratic national and state constitutions, we challenge the consensus among constitutional theorists that a central purpose of constitutionalism is the entrenchment (the fortification against future change) of broad principles. The empirical reality is that the majority of democrat…
What's Happened to American Federalism
Rethinking Blaisdell
In the landmark case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a state-level debt relief statute that was quite similar to those it had long deemed to violate the Contracts Clause. The dissent even argued that the Contracts Clause was written precisely to prohibit this type of state legislation. Rather than seeking to understand or characterize this doctrinal shift, as most work on Blaisde…
The Civic Constitution
To Change the Fundamental Law of the State”
As the United States industrialized, its state constitutions began to include protections for laborers. In this article, I describe the origins of these constitutional provisions and ask why labor organizations and other reformers pursued their inclusion in state constitutions. I argue that they saw state constitutions as a vehicle to prompt reluctant legislatures to pass protective statutes, to entrench existing protections against future legisl…
Popular Constitutionalism's Hard When You're Not Very Popular
Through a case study of the early American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this article examines the empirical ramifications of constitutional scholars' recent exhortations to "take the Constitution away from the courts" in order to promote democratic deliberation about constitutional meaning. While it is now one of the most prominent examples of a litigation-based interest group, the ACLU began its existence demonstrating a commitment to constitut…
To Change the Fundamental Law of the State”
As the United States industrialized, its state constitutions began to include protections for laborers. In this article, I describe the origins of these constitutional provisions and ask why labor organizations and other reformers pursued their inclusion in state constitutions. I argue that they saw state constitutions as a vehicle to prompt reluctant legislatures to pass protective statutes, to entrench existing protections against future legisl…
What's Happened to American Federalism
The Civic Constitution
Constitutions Unentrenched
T his article highlights a gap between a great deal of constitutional theory and a great deal of the practice of democratic constitution-making. Drawing on data from democratic national and state constitutions, we challenge the consensus among constitutional theorists that a central purpose of constitutionalism is the entrenchment (the fortification against future change) of broad principles. The empirical reality is that the majority of democrat…
Broken Trust
Stephen M. Griffin has helped redefine the study of constitutional development by calling scholars’ attention to transformations in the fundamental structures and processes of governance. These changes often escape notice because they tend to occur outside the courts and without a formal announcement, yet Griffin demonstrates that to ignore them is to miss crucial features of our constitutional order and its development. His most recent book, Bro…
Rethinking Blaisdell
In the landmark case Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a state-level debt relief statute that was quite similar to those it had long deemed to violate the Contracts Clause. The dissent even argued that the Contracts Clause was written precisely to prohibit this type of state legislation. Rather than seeking to understand or characterize this doctrinal shift, as most work on Blaisde…
Crises of Authority
Constitutional scholars have long observed that the term “constitutional crisis” is overused. Pundits and scholars routinely use it to describe constitutional developments that they view as normatively undesirable. But doing so may hurt our ability to recognize them. We use a comparative and historical perspective to call attention to the worst-case scenario of constitutional breakdown. This scenario, which we will refer to as a “constitutional c…
Telling Constitutional Stories
Law (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (7 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Constitution (4 works) · Democracy (4 works) · Law and economics (4 works)