New Article: K. Sabeel Rahman, Constructing Citizenship: Exclusion and Inclusion Through the Governance of Basic Necessities, 118 Columbia L. Rev. (2018). Abstract below:
While income inequality has become an increasingly central focus of public policy debate and public law scholarship, systemic inequality and exclusion are produced not just by disparities in income but also by more hidden and pernicious background rules that systematically disadvantage and subordinate certain constituencies. This Essay focuses on a particularly crucial—and often underappreciated—site for the construction and contestation of systemic inequality and exclusion: the provision of, and terms of access to, basic necessities like water, housing, and healthcare. We can think of these necessities as “public goods,” which carry a greater moral and political importance as foundational goods and services that make other forms of social, economic, or political activity possible and thus carry a greater moral and political importance. Drawing on historical and contemporary accounts, this Essay argues that the administration of these essential public goods represents one of the major ways in which law and public policy construct systemic forms of inequality and exclusion. This Essay identifies a set of “exclusionary strategies,” including bureaucratic exclusion, privatization, and fragmentation, through which law constructs such inequality via the maladministration of public goods. Relatedly, this Essay argues that promoting equality and access requires a more inclusionary approach to the administration of these public goods, for example by expanding the authority and accountability of public-goods administrative bodies and by exploring greater forms of direct public provision. Finally, this Essay situates this notion of public goods governance within a larger discussion of equality and democracy.
Poverty Law 