Pennsylvania Book Talk: Permanent State of Emergency

University of Pennsylvania Law School, 3501 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA
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Join Ryan Alford for a talk on his latest book Permanent State of Emergency: Unchecked Executive Power and the Demise of the Rule of Law. The event will take place in Silverman 147 at University of Pennsylvania Law School, presented by the Centre for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL).

In Permanent State of Emergency, Ryan Alford establishes that the ongoing failure to address human rights abuses is a symptom of the most serious constitutional crisis in American history. Instead of curbing the increase in executive power, Congress and the courts facilitated the breakdown of the nation’s constitutional order and set the stage for presidential supremacy. The presidency, Alford argues, is now more than imperial: it is an elective dictatorship. Providing both an overview and a systematic analysis of the new regime, he objectively demonstrates that it does not meet even the minimum requirements of the rule of law.

Ryan Alford is assistant professor at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University.

"Concluding that the U.S. government is now an elective dictatorship where systemic violations of basic rights can be carried out with impunity, Alford’s utterly reasonable and objective study is a compelling, important call to restore democratic balance." Publishers Weekly

"Permanent State of Emergency offers a compelling historical and theoretical analysis of executive power from a unique perspective. In light of President Trump, the argument of the book has only become more pressing and urgent, making this an indispensable guide to both recent and current events." Robert Diab, Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University