Charles F. Sabel
Columbia University · Columbia Law School
Active 1978–2026
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About
Charles F. Sabel is the Maurice T. Moore Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and a professor of social science. He holds an A.B. in social studies and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. His earlier work focused on the crisis of mass production and its implications for market regulation and macroeconomics. His recent work develops pragmatist ideas into a general conception of democratic experimentalism, with particular attention to regulation, complex social service provision, and contracting under uncertainty. Sabel's current projects include elaborating experimentalist solutions to global problems such as trade and climate change, investigating the transformation of U.S. administrative law in the face of uncertainty, and exploring new models of economic development in the context of globalization.
Research topics
- Political Science
- Law
- Sociology
- Law and economics
- Business
- Economics
- International economics
- Epistemology
- Political economy
- Public administration
Selected publications
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 91 citations
articleOpen accessSenior author2019-07-11 · 52 citations
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingTechnology is commonly regarded as permissive rather than constraining: as much a tool for the realization of changing human ends as a machine imposing its rhythms on its tenders. Corporations, buffeted by markets that have become more volatile in part because technology is proving so malleable, are desperately trying to reduce their risks by transforming dedicated or special-purpose resources into general-purpose ones. This chapter deals with a sketch of a new form of organization that hedges i…
Plurilateral Cooperation as an Alternative to Trade Agreements: Innovating One Domain at a Time
Global Policy · 2021 · 35 citations
Senior authorCorrespondingAbstract At the end of 2017 different groups of WTO members decided to launch talks on four subjects, setting aside the WTO consensus working practice. This paper argues that these ‘joint statement initiatives’ (JSIs) should seek to establish open plurilateral agreements (OPAs) even in instances where the outcome can be incorporated into existing schedules of commitments of participating WTO members. Designing agreements as OPAs provides an institutional framework for collaboration among the res…
Oxford University Press eBooks · 2023 · 34 citations
Senior authorCorrespondingAbstract How does governing work today? How does society (mis)handle pressing challenges such as armed violence, cultural difference, ecological degradation, economic restructuring, geopolitical shifts, global pandemics, migration flows, and technological change in ways that are democratic, effective, fair, peaceful, and sustainable? This book addresses this key question around the theme of ‘polycentrism’: i.e. the idea that contemporary governing is dispersed, fluctuating, messy, elusive, and h…
Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022 · 30 citations
1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 32 shared
Gráinne de Búrca
European University Institute
- 31 shared
Robert O. Keohane
University of Oxford
- 20 shared
Jonathan Zeitlin
Scuola Normale Superiore
- 18 shared
William H. Simon
Stanford University
- 18 shared
Dani Rodrik
- 18 shared
Ricardo Hausmann
Santa Fe Institute
- 16 shared
Anne Morriss
New York University Press
- 16 shared
Andrés Throughout
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Education
B.A., Social Studies
Harvard University
M.A., Government
Harvard University
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