Chapter 7 uses the life and career of US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to contemplate how a Progressive social-justice advocate might seek to redress entrenched housing segregation today. While acknowledging that Brandeis did not expressly speak out for racial equality in strong and unequivocal words in judicial opinions, the chapter looks for present guidance in the kind of lawyer Brandeis was, including his Progressive cause advocacy and pioneering of the Brandeis brief using extensive social science data to support government policies addressing social and economic inequalities. Observing that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) successfully used the Brandeis brief technique to overturn racial segregation in the courts, the chapter highlights the importance of evidence from sociological study about the adverse impacts of housing segregation and the interconnectedness of race and poverty in housing conditions. Brandeis would be cautious about judicial imposition of reparations but would support legislative consideration of reparations to remedy past discrimination, tailored to balance benefits and costs, as well as state and local policy solutions as laboratories of democracy.

Research in political science, economics, and public policy has primarily examined two types of government housing programs. The first involves low-income public housing in advanced industrialized nations like the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan, where beneficiaries receive subsidized rental housing or housing benefits without property rights. In contrast, research from cities in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia has focused on policies that grant land titles to residents of slums and informal settlements, providing property rights without additional housing benefits. I focus on a third type of program, understudied yet prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, including India: subsidized homeownership. It is theoretically distinct from rental programs or those accommodating informal settlements because it involves a large in-kind transfer and property rights. I argue that these initiatives uniquely influence how citizens invest in the future, escape poverty, develop agency (or what I call dignity) in social relationships, and wield power in local politics. To support this theory, I outline a multi-method study across three different programs.

This chapter introduces the book’s main argument that American economic hierarchy has enhanced property rights and state capacity in partner states over the past forty years, challenging the conventional view that United States’ involvement undermines state-building. It outlines the conceptual framework, focusing on extractive capacity and hierarchy as key concepts. The chapter previews the argument, highlights the book’s contributions to system-level theories, state-building research, and international development literature, and outlines the plan for the book.

This chapter explores housing as a foundation for wealth accumulation, emphasizing its dual role as both a consumable resource and an investment. My theoretical contributions are twofold: First, I argue that property rights can transform in-kind transfers into flexible, reliable wealth transfers, enabling recipients to invest in themselves and their children, regardless of the housing’s location. Second, I demonstrate how housing transfers reduce uncertainty and encourage future-oriented investments, thereby driving long-term wealth accumulation. Using three housing programs as case studies, I show that beneficiaries invest in human or physical capital, improving their employment prospects and income. I also examine mechanisms such as relocation, borrowing capacity, and time horizons, finding strong evidence for the latter two. Overall, the large changes to beneficiaries' economic behavior and outcomes suggest the possibility for important psychological, social, and political effects, which I explore in Chapters 4 and 5.

This chapter develops the book’s main theoretical argument, positing that American economic hierarchy has generally enhanced property rights and state capacity in partner states over the past forty years. It traces the shift in United States’ economic priorities toward property rights promotion in the 1980s, driven by foreign direct investors and exporting firms. The chapter explores the mechanisms linking property rights to state capacity and discusses the contrasting effects of American security hierarchy. It also considers alternative explanations and potential scope conditions.

The Grandee and Agitator factions of Cromwell’s New Model Army debate what is to come after the English Revolution. Equality, government by consent, and the artificial nature of property are agreed. Disagreement centers on the property qualification for the vote, and the role of natural rights.

This chapter reviews the Commission and Court’s case law on the application of A1P1 to intellectual property claims in light of the previous findings. It was not until the early 1980s that the first claims relating to IPRs were filed. A detailed analysis of the case law reveals how, by then, the Commission and Court had no difficulty in hearing complaints from multinational global corporations claiming to be victims of State violations of their right to enjoyment of possessions. Initial judicial deference to European domestic laws facilitated the anchoring of national legal fictionsinto the supranationallegal order of the ECHR, laying the ground for transnational protection of companies’ IPRs. The Court’s tilt away from the original moral intent of A1P1 later intensified in a series of landmark cases on patents, trademarks and copyright in which the Court adopted an autonomous reading A1P1 in line with European Union law,consolidating and deepening a liberal economic reading.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was opened for signature in Rome on 4th November 1950. Property rights were left out of the list of protected rights in the ECHR and their inclusion delayed until the adoption of Article 1 of the First Protocol (A1P1) in 1952. This chapter sets out the historical context for the adoption of the ECHR and the normative foundations of European human rights. In contrast to the exceptionalist thesis that the ECHR sought to give expression to a sui generis European conception of human rights founded on liberal market freedoms, this chapter argues that the normative foundations of the ECHR mirror the moral foundations of international human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The chapter examines the theoretical foundations of international human rights, highlighting the centrality of the individual human person as the subject of human rights. It shows how the list of fundamental human rights is derived from the idea of respect for human freedom as distinct from economic, market freedoms illuminating the controversy over protection of private property as fundamental human right and its original exclusion from the ECHR.

Hohfeld’s and Reinach’s ontologies of rights have rarely been compared. After having highlighted the similarities between them, the focus is on what is arguably their most fundamental disagreement. Hohfeld assumes from the outset that all rights are relations, and consequently claims that all liberties have correlatives, which he calls, for lack of a better term, “no-rights”. Reinach, for his part, maintains that liberties, unlike claims, essentially lack correlatives and counterparts, which is why he calls them “absolute rights”. Who is right? Do liberties have correlatives or not? It is argued that both Reinach and Hohfeld have overgeneralized an initially correct insight. Reinach is right, pace Hohfeld, that some liberties are absolute, but wrong that all are. Hohfeld is right, pace Reinach, that some liberties have no-rights as correlatives, but wrong that all liberties have such correlatives. A reconciled ontology of rights is proposed that makes room for both absolute and relative liberties.

This chapter, addressing the methodological issues in the book, begins by defining the primary components of the institutions under study: human rights, property rights, and collective decision-making power. Inspired by mechanism design theory, the chapter then introduces incentive-compatible institutional change as an analytical framework. Building on this foundation, it delves into the concept of institutional genes, including its connection with path-dependency theory.

This chapter examines the role of property rights as foundational institutional genes influencing social, economic, and political systems. It argues that the distribution of property rights, whether dispersed as those in ancient Greece and Rome or centralized as those in Imperial China, deeply affects the evolution of institutions such as the rule of law, constitutionalism, and democracy. Broadly held private property rights foster the development of these institutions, which become self-replicating over time. In contrast, centralized property rights lead to monopoly power and coercive institutions that not only frequently restrict individual freedoms but can also lay the foundation for totalitarianism. The chapter seeks to clarify the concept of property rights to offer deeper insights into these institutional dynamics.

Experimental jurisprudence draws methods and theories from an increasingly wide variety of fields, including psychology, economics, philosophy, and political science. However, researchers interested in legal thought have thus far paid relatively little attention to its origins in development. This chapter highlights an emerging approach that leverages methods and insights from developmental science to better understand the nature and development of adult intuitions about the law. By studying children’s earliest intuitions about rules, laws, and other topics, this “intuitive jurisprudence” approach can provide new methods and theoretical frameworks for experimental jurisprudence, as well as clarify places in which the law does or does not match human intuitions about justice. Already, developmental psychology and legal scholarship may converge to be mutually informative in a number of diverse areas, and this chapter reviews several, including: intent and punishment; fairness and procedural justice; ownership and property rights; trust in testimony and evidentiary issues; and social biases and equal protection under the law.

North America’s Indigenous inhabitants are often depicted as nomadic, hunter-gatherers who followed wild game across the Bering Strait. However, the story is more complex as several American sites predate the Bering Strait crossing. Moreover, Indians developed beyond hunter-gatherers. Historical evidence from sites such as Poverty Point, Cahokia, and Chaco Canyon reveal well-ordered societies. Tribes recognized private property rights, honored contracts, and punished crimes. Indigenous institutions allowed Indians to thrive.