Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes. Edited by Tom Ginsburg and Alberto Simpser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 278 pp. $95.00 cloth, $34.99 paper.

• Date: 01 September 2015
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12159

upon by a benevolent, protective, democratic state, (Ally 2009) which

purports to give them rights without broader social transformation.

In other words, perhaps the regulatory misfit lies at least partly else-

where. This volume has the virtue of forcing the reader to grapple

with the relationship between historically laden social status, affirma-

tions of rights, and broader emancipatory claims in any counter-

hegemonic project purporting to write labor law into the future.

This book is a pleasure to read in part because it is so clearly the

work of a team of researchers that has been engaged in rigorous,

constructive dialogue, and rooted social action. The chapters build

convincingly on each other, and the book constitutes a satisfying

whole. I recommend it enthusiastically to anyone concerned with

the future of labor law, and intent on reimagining it from the bot-

tom up.

References

Ally, Shireen (2009) From Servants to Workers: South African Domestic Workersand the Demo-

cratic State. Ithaca: Cornell Univ.Press.

Coulthard, Glen (2014) Red Skin, White Masks: Beyond the Colonial Politics of Recognition.

Minneapolis: Univ.of Minnesota Press.

ILO, Decent Work for Domestic Workers (2010) Report no. IV(1) International Labour

Conference, 99th Session.

ILO, Decent Work for Domestic WorkersConvention (2011) (No. 189) and Recommen-

dation, 2011 (No. 201), 53 ILM 250 (2014).

***

Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes. Edited by Tom Ginsburg and

Alberto Simpser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

278 pp. $95.00 cloth, $34.99 paper.

Reviewed by Mark Fathi Massoud, Politics Department and Legal

Studies Program, University of California, Santa Cruz

What shape do constitutions take in authoritarian regimes, when

governmental power is not limited? Can even “sham” constitutions

generate state legitimacy? If so, how? These related questions guide

Ginsburg and Simpser’s edited volume, Constitutions in Authoritarian

Regimes. This book begins with a concise introduction in which the

editors explain why constitutions matter and what they do for

authoritarian rulers. Specifically, constitutions solve “problems of

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