Robert A. Kagan
Prof Emeritus of Political Science and Law
Office Hours
no longer holding office hours
Personal Statement
Professor Kagan joined Berkeley’s Political Science Department in 1974, and in 1988 he also became a member of the Berkeley Law faculty. He taught courses on legal institutions, the American legal system in comparative perspective, and American constitutional law.
Research Interests
Empirical Study of Legal Institutions
Regulatory Enforcement and Compliance
Comparative Legal Institutions
Degrees
LL.B., Columbia Law School
Ph.D., Sociology, Yale University
Books
- Regulatory Justice: Implementing A Wage-Price Freeze (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1978)
- Going By The Book: The Problem of Regulatory Unreasonableness (with Eugene Bardach) A 20th Century Fund Study. Temple University Press, 1982, reprinted with new introduction, Transaction Books, 2002
- Adversarial Legalism and American Government: The American Way of Law, 2nd Edition (Harvard University Press, 2019)
- Shades of Green: Business, Regulation, Environment (with Neil Gunningham & Dorothy Thornton) Stanford University Press (2003)
- Regulatory Encounters: Multinational Corporations and Adversarial Legalism (University of California Press, 2000) (Co-edited with Lee Axelrad)
- Dynamics of Regulatory Change: How Globalization Affects National Regulatory Policies. University of California Press, 2004 (co-edited with David Vogel).
- Regulation and Regulatory Processes, in The International Library of Essays on Law and Society , Ashgate, 2007 (co-edited with Cary Coglianese)
- Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2013) (co-edited with Diana Kapiszewski & Gordon Silverstein)
Articles
Selected Articles:
- “General Deterrence and Corporate Environmental Behavior” (with Dorothy Thornton & Neil Gunningham) Law & Policy 27: 262-288 (2005)
- “Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc.: Legitimating Regulatory Enforcement” (with Rachel VanSickle-Ward), in Peter Strauss, Ed., Administrative Law Stories (Foundation Press, 2006)
- “Compliance Costs, Regulation, and Environmental Performance: Controlling Truck Emissions in the US” Regulation & Governance 2: 1-18 (2008) (with Dorothy Thornton & Neil Gunningham)
- “When Social Norms and Pressures Are Not Enough: Environmental Performance in the Trucking Industry,” Law & Society Review 41: 405-435
- “Globalization and Legal Change: The “Americanization” of European Law?” Regulation & Governance 1: 99-120 (2007)
- “The Politics of Tobacco Regulation in the United States” (with William Nelson) in Robert Rabin & Stephen Sugarman, eds. Regulating Tobacco (Oxford University Press, 2001)
- "The Organization of Administrative Justice Systems: The Role of Political Mistrust,” in Michael Adler, Ed., Administrative Justice in Context (Hart Publishing, 2010) pp. 161-180
- “Fear, Duty, and Regulatory Compliance: Lessons from Three Research Projects’ in Christine Parker & Vibeke Nielsen, eds., Explaining Compliance: Business Responses to Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2012) pp 37-5
- “A Consequential Court: The U.S. Supreme Court in the 20th Century,” in D. Kapiszewski, G. Silverstein, & R.A. Kagan, eds, Consequential Courts: Judicial Roles in Global Perspective.Cambridge University Press (2013) pp.199-232
- Administrative Justice and Cultures of Rule-Application.” In Marc Hertogh et al, ed (2022), The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. 2022
-
The Political Vulnerability of the American Administrative State.” In Sharon Cowan & Simon Halliday, eds, Socio-Legal Generation: Essays in Honour of Michael Adler (2024)
-
“Scenes from a Sociolegal Career: An Informal Memoir.” Regulation & Governance (2024) https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12638
Other
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1994-
- Recipient, Law & Society Association’s Harry Kalven Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Research, 2006
- Recipient, Lifetime Achievement Award, American Political Science Association, Law & Courts Section (2012)
- Recipient, Law & Society Association’s Stan Wheeler Mentorship Award, 2009
- Recipient, Mentorship and Teaching Award, Law & Courts Section of American Political Science Association, 2009
- Co-Editor, Regulation & Governance, 2008--2012