Transcript: Shep Melnick on Adversarial Legalism
Second in the Syllabus Series
What follows below is a transcript of the second episode in the Syllabus series, wherein I do a deep dive into a subject with an academic expert.
R. Shep Melnick, Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government, has put together a syllabus of readings that we will be working through on the subscriber-only Syllabus podcast series.
This episode we discuss Robert A. Kagan’s essay “Adversarial Legalism and American Government.”
The original episode was released on April 25, 2022 and you can listen to it on Substack or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Apple | Spotify | Google | RSS. Become a paid subscriber to my Substack to receive transcripts of all audio content across platforms.
Other readings mentioned in this episode:
Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril’s 1967 book The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public Opinion
Jonathan Rauch’s Jul/Aug 2016 article in The Atlantic, "How American Politics Went Insane"
Daniel P. Moynihan's Iron Law of Emulation theory in "Imperial Government." Commentary, Jun. 1978
Jamal Greene’s 2021 book How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart
Power on to the third episode of the Syllabus series where we discuss Hugh Heclo, “The Sixties’ False Dawn: Awakenings, Movements, and Postmodern Policymaking,” Journal of Policy History, vol. 8, 1996.
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