About

Daniel B. Rodriguez, the Harold Washington Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, served as dean of the Law School from January 2012 through August 2018. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a council member of the American Law Institute. His principal academic work focuses on administrative law, local government law, statutory interpretation, federal and state constitutional law, and the law-business-technology interface. Rodriguez has held distinguished academic positions including Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas-Austin, Dean and Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, and Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law. He has also served as a visiting professor at several top law schools, including Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, USC, and Virginia. Rodriguez earned his law degree with honors from Harvard Law School and his undergraduate degree from California State University of Long Beach.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Humanities
• Sociology
• Law and economics
• Business
• Law
• Economics
• Finance
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• The New Economic Liberties

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• State Constitutional Rights, Naturally

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Comparative Local Government Law in Motion: How Different Local Government Law Regimes Affect Global Cities’ Bike Share Plans

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Constitutional Stability and the Role of Countermajoritarian Rules (or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love our Antidemocratic Constitution)

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Constitutional Stability and the Role of Countermajoritarian Rules (or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love our Anti-democratic Constitution)

  ICL Journal · 2025-09-22

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Advocates of strong versions of democracy and majoritarian decisionmaking in American politics have long expressed concern about constitutional rules that constrain majorities. That such countermajoritarian rules in constitutions are, broadly speaking, anti-democratic has been a central critique of American constitutionalism, and has flourished in recent scholarship. Many scholars have concluded that our Constitution is fundamentally flawed, while others have argued that these concerns can be ameliorated by approaches to constitutional architecture and to judicial review that are democracy-enhancing. We argue here that this debate suffers from a neglect of a key aspect of political strategy and of constitutional design. Critically, proponents of majoritarian constitutions ignore the problem of constitutional stability. To understand why some democracies survive, we stipulate a constitutional desideratum : regardless of a constitution’s normative contents, a constitution does no one any good if it quickly fails. Our positive thesis is that all successful constitutions satisfy the limit condition : to survive constitutions must limit the stakes of power. When powerful groups feel threatened by the party holding power, they are likely to support extra-constitutional action to protect themselves. Majoritarians therefore face a fundamental tradeoff: Greater responsiveness to majorities raises the stakes of politics; and yet this makes the constitution less stable. This view implies that majoritarians should embrace countermajoritarian features that limit the stakes: when countermajoritarian features protect constituencies with the power to disrupt the constitution, they increase a constitution’s stability and thus its longevity and its successful performance.

  PublisherDOI

• Rethinking “Our Bar Federalism”

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-09-04

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Pandemic Harms and Private Law’s Limits

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-03-16

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Rethinking Our Bar Federalism

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Good Governing

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2024-10-17

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Good Governing: The Police Power in the American States is a deep historical and legal analysis of state police power, examining its origins in the founding period of the American public through the 20th century. The book reveals how American police power was intended to be a broad, but not unlimited, charter of regulatory governance, designed to implement key constitutional objectives and advance the general welfare. It explores police power's promise as a mechanism for implementing successful regulatory governance and tackling societal ills, while considering key structural issues like separation of powers and individual rights. This insightful book will shape understanding of the neglected state police power, a key part of constitutional governance in the U.S. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Functions of Constitutional Monarchy: Why Kings and Queens Survive in a World of Republics

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Mathew D. McCubbins

  Duke University

  26 shared

• Barry R. Weingast

  21 shared

• Cheryl Boudreau

  University of California, Davis

  10 shared

• Nicholas Weller

  6 shared

• Arthur Lupia

  State Street (United States)

  5 shared

• Edward H. Stiglitz

  4 shared

• Daniel J. Hemel

  3 shared

• Roger G. Noll

  2 shared

Education

• Licenciado en Derecho

  ESADE Business School

Awards & honors

• Elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
• Council member of the American Law Institute