Rule of Law

Bruce Ackerman

2026
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The 2026 Tang Prize in Rule of Law is awarded to Professor Bruce Ackerman to recognize “his intellectual leadership in developing new conceptions of constitution-making, judicial review, and the structures needed for democratic constitutional governance, offering conceptual and practical approaches to defend the rule of law amid the crises facing modern republics.” The Selection Committee noted particularly that “his comparative engagements and passionate commitment to understanding constitutional legitimacy and popular sovereignty, exercised across generations, have inspired constitutional lawyers around the world in their pursuit of social justice and the rule of law.”

 

Professor Ackerman was raised in the Bronx, New York, United States (U.S.). Following his graduation from Yale Law School, he began his legal career clerking for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Justice John Marshall Harlan II of the U.S. Supreme Court. While maintaining liberal views, his experience working with these preeminent conservative jurists vastly increased his insight into the challenging path of the judiciary toward securing legitimacy within a constitutional democracy. He later devoted himself to academia, holding faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Yale University, where he currently serves as Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science. He is a Commander of the French Order of Merit, a Member of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

 

Professor Ackerman’s core contribution to the rule of law centers on his groundbreaking theory of “dualist democracy.” This theory distinguishes two modes of politics in constitutional democracy: “normal politics” that can be found in the everyday operation of the constitutional system, and “constitutional politics” that is forged through intense citizen mobilization in tandem with the activation of constitutional mechanisms, thereby establishing a new constitutional paradigm. Under “constitutional politics,” when citizen mobilization reaches its peak, forming a decisive consensus that is later institutionalized into the constitutional order through constitutional mechanisms, it gives rise to a “constitutional moment.” In times when the constitutional order is challenged or paralyzed, the synergy between citizen mobilization and constitutional mechanisms offers a pivotal opportunity to forge a new consensus and guide the nation out of gridlock. This theory inspires constitutional scholars around the world to uncover the “constitutional moments” in their own constitutional histories, and provides an essential analytical perspective on the challenges currently facing the U.S. constitutional order and contemporary democracies.

 

The operation of “constitutional politics” has citizen mobilization at its core, underscoring Professor Ackerman’s scholarly concern for public participation and the realization of popular sovereignty. To increase the deliberative capacity of society and to enhance equal participation, Professor Ackerman has pioneered several inspiring reform proposals. For instance, in Deliberation Day (with James S. Fishkin), he advocates that the government establish a new national holiday before elections to incentivize citizens to engage in discussion and rational debate on pivotal issues. Furthermore, in Voting with Dollars (with Ian Ayres), he proposes a system wherein the state provides a small amount of political capital to each voter, who can then anonymously donate it to candidates. This mechanism seeks to make politicians more responsive to constituents’ demands, thereby preventing the democratic process from being monopolized by massive political contributions.

 

Professor Ackerman’s intellectual reach further extends into the realm of social justice. In The Stakeholder Society (with Anne Alstott), he advocates for the equality of all citizens, viewing them all as “stakeholders” in society, and argues that the state must address the material inequalities that prevent citizens from becoming full political actors. To this end, through the institutional design of resource distribution, he proposes that the state provide equal capital to young citizens. In addition to mitigating inequalities at the starting points, this proposal also ensures that all citizens possess sufficient economic resources to take part in the exercise of public reason, thereby enabling effective democratic participation.

 

Professor Ackerman’s scholarship transcends both spatial and temporal boundaries and seamlessly integrates the perspective of different disciplines such as law, politics, history, and economics. He delves deeply into the historical contexts of various nations to observe the evolution of their constitutions, offering several key propositions, such as diverse pathways to the legitimation of constitutions. His comparative constitutional approach offers global scholars a vital framework to examine their own histories and to envision the future from the standpoint of local realities and democratic principles.

 

His efforts to bridge theoretical breakthroughs with real-world institutional solutions have been so substantial that their impacts are extensive. In his book Before the Next Attack, he introduces the concept of an “emergency constitution,” which provides a constitutional foundation for emergency powers while ensuring a system of checks and balances that enables a proper return to the normal constitutional order once the crisis has passed. This concept inspired reform of emergency powers in the French constitution. Additionally, Deliberation Day has inspired deliberation initiatives and mechanisms in the U.S. and other countries such as Mongolia. The Stakeholder Society has likewise inspired policy initiatives in countries such as the United Kingdom and Brazil.

 

Professor Ackerman has been active in his research and teaching, a commitment that has spanned decades. The author of numerous seminal books, he has received some of the highest honors in the field. In 2002, he was awarded the Henry M. Phillips Prize for lifetime achievement in jurisprudence by the American Philosophical Society, in recognition of his influential trilogy, We the People. In 1982, he was awarded the Henderson Prize of Harvard Law School for The Uncertain Search for Environmental Quality (with Susan Rose-Ackerman, James W. Sawyer, Jr. and Dale W. Henderson). In 1981, he was awarded the Gavel Award of the American Bar Association for Social Justice in the Liberal State.

 

As a leading global thinker, Professor Ackerman guides the transformation of democratic constitutional governance through his grand theoretical framework and forward-looking vision. As a responsive legal scholar, Professor Ackerman commits himself to bridging theory and practice, proposing numerous pioneering conceptual and practical approaches to address contemporary crises in the rule of law and constitutionalism. As a dedicated educator, his quest for popular sovereignty and constitutional legitimacy constantly reminds us that the constitution is an ongoing dialogue. In an era interwoven with crises, his thought continues to inspire generations of constitutional lawyers around the world, guiding all toward a more inclusive, resilient vision of social justice and the rule of law.

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