Apart from their assigned mod courses, 1L students may only enroll in courses offered as 1L electives. A complete list of these courses can be found on the 1L Elective Listings page. 1L students must use the 1L class number listed on the course description when enrolling.
220.I sec. 001 - Law, Politics, and Governance (Spring 2025)
Instructor: Jonathan S Gould (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
Instructor: Christopher Lee Kutz (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
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Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
W 10:00 AM - 12:40 PM
Location: Law 170
From January 15, 2025
To April 23, 2025
Course End: April 23, 2025
Class Number: 33512
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 25
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 25
As of: 12/13 01:25 PM
This graduate seminar in legal and political theory will examine some of the key concepts in law, politics, and governance, as well as the relationships between those concepts. Likely topics include: legality and legitimacy, institutional design, the role of written constitutions and constitutional norms, individual rights, the lawmaking process, authority to interpret the constitution and statutes (including debates over judicial review), allocation of authority between national and subnational governments, and international law and legality. In the course of discussing these topics, we will pay specific attention to the interplay of legal rules and institutions with other values, including democracy, effective governance, the public welfare, and the status of historically marginalized demographic groups.
We envision the course as an advanced seminar in constitutional and political theory. The course is open to all Berkeley Law students (JSP, JD, JSD, or LLM) and Berkeley doctoral students from other departments. Graduate students from other Berkeley schools are welcome to enroll with permission of the instructors.
This course will tackle important and challenging questions in the spirit of open inquiry and free exchange of ideas. We welcome a wide range of viewpoints on these questions. Reasonable minds can differ on many of the issues that we will be discussing, and no ideas are immune from scrutiny.
Exam Notes: (None) Class requires a series of papers, assignments, or presentations throughout the semester
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Course Category: Public Law and Policy
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP)
If you are the instructor or their FSU, you may add a file like a syllabus or a first assignment to this page.
Readers:
No reader.
Books:
Instructor has indicated that no books will be assigned.