Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Development of Corporate Personhood Law In Comparative Perspective, 1886-2014

随着公司资本主义的兴起和第一批大企业的建立，美国法学家和学者为如何界定公司在美国法律中的地位而苦苦挣扎。争论的重点是公司应该在多大程度上被视为与个人相似；具有权利的自然实体，可以从公司所有者的权利中分离出来。到20世纪20年代末，随着一种“现实主义”观点的盛行，这场争论在很大程度上消失了，这种观点认为法律术语基本上是空洞的能指。近年来，企业人格再次成为公众辩论的话题。最近，最高法院重新审视了公司权利的适当范围问题：公司实体应在何时以及以何种基础从事政治言论并享有公民享有的保护。本研究解决的问题是，公司人格法律理论的遗产在回答这些问题以及在更广泛地制定美国公司监管方面发挥了什么作用（如果有的话）？为什么公司人格在美国法律中扮演了这样的角色？为了解决这些问题，研究人员采用混合方法来分析1886年至2014年间公司人格法的发展。首先，研究者通过法律引用的网络来追溯人格主义的历史发展。这使他们能够确定人格原则被运用的时期、案件、法院和法律领域。其次，研究人员使用美国和英国之间的比较历史分析来解释为什么公司人格原则对美国法学家特别有吸引力。研究人员使用档案材料来评估法律发展的经济、政治、制度和文化驱动因素的相对影响。该项目的总体目标是发展公司法发展的文化理论。

With the rise of corporate capitalism and the establishment of the first great enterprises, American jurists and scholars struggled with the question of how to define the status of the corporation for the purposes of American law. The main point of contention concerned the degree to which the corporation should be considered as similar to a person; a natural entity with rights that could be separated from those of the corporation's owners. By the end of the 1920s, the debate had largely dissipated with the ascendance of a "realist" view that cast legal terms as largely empty signifiers. In recent years, corporate personhood has once again become a topic of public debate. Recently the Supreme Court re-visited the question of the proper scope for corporate rights: when and upon what basis should corporate entities engage in political speech and enjoy protections that citizens enjoy. The questions this research address are, what role (if any) did the legacy of the legal doctrine of corporate personhood play answering these questions, and in crafting American corporate regulation more broadly? And why has corporate personhood come to play this role in American law? To address these questions, the researchers undertake a mixed-method approach to analyze the development of corporate personhood law between 1886-2014. First, the researchers trace the historical development of the personhood doctrine through the web of legal citations. This allows them to identity the periods, cases, courts, and legal arenas where the personhood doctrine was deployed. Second, the researchers use a comparative historical analysis between the United States and England to explain why the doctrine of corporate personhood was especially appealing to American jurists. The researchers use archival material to assess the relative influence of economic, political, institutional, and cultural drivers of legal development. The overall goal of the project is to develop a cultural theory of the development of corporate law.