Gary J. Jacobsohn
Professor Jacobsohn's interests and work lie at the intersection of constitutional theory and comparative constitutionalism. His current work focuses on the question of constitutional change, and in that connection he is completing a book on Constitutional Revolution. He has held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the Fulbright Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is a past President of the New England Political Science Association, and has served as co-editor of the Rowman and Littlefield series on Studies in American Constitutionalism. Before coming to the University of Texas he was the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Among Professor Jacobsohn's publications are: Pragmatism, Statesmanship and the Supreme Court (Cornell University Press, 1977), The Supreme Court and the Decline of Constitutional Aspiration(Rowman and Littlefield, 1986), Apple of Gold: Constitutionalism in Israel and the United States (Princeton University Press, 1993), The Wheel of Law: India's Secularism in Comparative Constitutional Context (Princeton University Press and Oxford University Press-India, 2003), American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes (with Donald Kommers and John Finn) (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), Constitutional Identity, (Harvard University Press, 2010), and Comparative Constitutional Theory (with Miguel Schor) (Elgar Press, 2018).
Professor Jacobsohn’s current research focuses on the question of constitutional change in comparative perspective. In line with this interest, he is exploring the concept of constitutional identity, about which constitutional theorists have had relatively little to say. Professor Jacobsohn is addressing this inattention with a philosophical and comparative exploration of the idea. There are, according to the argument being developed, attributes of a constitution that allow one to identify it as such, and there is a dialogical process of identity formation that enables one to determine the specific identity of any given constitution.
Representing a mix of aspirations and commitments expressive of a nation’s past, constitutional identity also evolves in ongoing political and interpretive activities occurring in courts, legislatures, and other public and private domains. Professor Jacobsohn’s exploration of identity’s conceptual possibilities are centered in several constitutional settings - India, Ireland, Israel, and the United States – that highlight its distinctive features.
He is a Malcolm Macdonald Professor Emeritus in Constitutional and Comparative Law.