Book Manuscript Workshop with Kathleen Thelen at MPIfG

Kathleen Thelen, an external scientific member of the MPIfG and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was joined at the MPIfG on January 19 by her coauthors Jingtian Chen (MIT) and Morgan Gillespie (Stanford) for a presentation of their new book manuscript, “The Chamber of Influence: Corporate Power in American Courts.” Their one-day workshop was organized by MPIfG research coordinator Mischa Stratenwerth and attended by fifteen of the Institute’s researchers. It centered on an exploration of how US business interests – despite what is for liberal market economies an apparently typical inability to coordinate – have for decades accumulated legal capacities that allow them to take advantage of the distinctive role of the courts in the American political economy. Thelen, Chen, and Gillespie show that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center (NCLC) has been key to shielding business interests from challenges by organized labor and regulators, and to gradually moving the law in a more business-friendly direction. Among the topics considered during the lively plenary debate were comparative perspectives: To what extent do the findings translate to the German and European context – and what differences exist in interest representation and legal practice?