Jamie Mayerfeld

Jamie Mayerfeld is Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor in Law, Societies, and Justice. He received his PhD in politics from Princeton University in 1992. His primary research and teaching interests lie in political theory and human rights.

He recently published The Promise of Human Rights: Constitutional Government, Democratic Legitimacy, and International Law (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), where he develops an account of constitutional democracy as a cooperative project enlisting both domestic and international guardians to strengthen the protection of human rights.  He also wrote Suffering and Moral Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 1999). Mayerfeld has taught courses on the history of political thought; democratic theory; contemporary theories of justice; nationalism; human rights theory; religion, secularism, and toleration; the philosophy of punishment; human rights law; US constitutional law; and US detention policy in Guantanamo Bay.