Peter M. Shane

Peter Milo Shane (born 1952) is a law professor and writer. His best-known scholarly work focuses mainly on two subjects. The first is separation of powers law, especially law and the presidency. His work often explores what he calls an institutional conception of the rule of law in a separation of powers regime. See, e.g., Peter M, Shane, When Inter-branch Norms Break Down: Of Arms-for-Hostages, 'Orderly Shutdowns,' Presidential Impeachments, and Judicial 'Coups,' 12 Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 503 (2004). Under Shane's antiformalist conception, the rule of law is sustained not only by formal legal rules, but perhaps most importantly, by informal norms and conventional behaviors designed to maintain interbranch accountability even when public officials could ignore formal rules with impunity. Peter M. Shane, Madison's Nightmare: How Executive Power Threatens American Democracy 116 (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Checks and balances in such a system likewise "depend on an assemblage of norms, cooperative arrangements, and informal coordination activities." Id. Following political scientist Kenneth Shepsle, Shane thus calls the rule of law "an unstructured institution." Id. at 117. Shane's second major focus is cyberdemocracy. He is particularly interested in the potential of online government initiatives to engage the public more fully in actual policy making. He is a prominent member of the "cyberrealist school," which rejects technological determinism of both the utopian and dystopian kind. He argues that the democratic potential of digital information technologies depends significantly on human agency, although he perceives the structures of power in society as limiting the impact of any specific initiative. See, e.g., Peter M. Shane, Democracy Online: The Prospects for Political Renewal Through the Internet (Routledge, 2004).Madison's Nightmare is the major synthesis of Shane's separation of powers views. It both describes and analyzes the theo