Why Nothing Works: How Progressive Lawyers Helped Create a Vetocracy and What It Will Take to Make Government Work Again

Join ACS, HLS Dems, the Harvard Law & Policy Review, and Abundance for a lunch conversation with Prof. Edward Glaeser and Marc Dunkelman on his book, Why Nothing Works. It recounts liberals’ midcentury fight to create legal guardrails, like environmental review and procedural due process, that are now blocking the infrastructure needed to address climate change and the housing crisis. We’ll discuss how we came to live in a vetocracy and what we can do about it.

Marc Dunkelman is a Fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a former Democratic political operative who worked for members of both the Senate and House.

Edward Glaeser is the chair of Harvard’s economics department and the world’s leading economist on cities and urban economics.