Rick Pildes

Digging a Hole: The Legal Theory Podcast

On this week’s pod, Dave welcomes one of his former professors – Rick Pildes! Professor Pildes is the Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University Law School, an appointee to President Biden’s Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, and a contributor to the New York Times. He’s a leading scholar on the legal issues concerning democracy, and in this episode, we focus on his recent article “Political Fragmentation in Democracies of the West.”

To begin, Professor Pildes provides evidence for his main claim that center-left, center-right, and establishment political authority has fragmented across the west, from first-past-the-post to proportional representation systems. Having established this fragmentation, we then discuss potential explanations for why political power has fragmentented. Beyond a slew of economic issues, including globalization, the 2008 financial crisis, and rising income inequality, we also push on the role of immigration and race both in American politics and in other countries. Next, we talk about another big pillar of Professor Pildes’ paper – the communications revolution and how it enables politicians to act more as individual actors rather than a cog in their party. After, we overview several potential remedies to this fragmentation of democracy.

Lastly, we ask Professor Pildes about his recent work on reforming the electoral college process, including changes to the primary election structure and creating competitive election districts.

Referenced Readings

• “Political Fragmentation in Democracies of the West,” Richard Pildes.
• Political Ideologies and Political Parties in America, Hans Noel.
• “How Congress can fix the Electoral Count Act,” Edward B. Foley, Michael W. McConnell, Richard H. Pildes, and Bradley Smith.