| This thesis explores the relationship between theories of the corporation and corporate constitutional rights doctrine in the United States and Canada. In the American context, I contend that in this century corporate constitutional rights jurisprudence has been characterized by a continuing conflict between competing and antithetical conceptions of corporate identity. Accordingly, I dissent from the view expressed by Morton Horwitz that twentieth century American corporate constitutional rights theory and doctrine has been dominated by a "natural entity" vision of the corporation. The heterogeneity and flux of the American picture, I argue is paralleled by patterns which have emerged in Canadian corporate rights jurisprudence under the Charter.;The thesis also considers the broad question of whether, and to what extent legal constructs, in particular theories of the corporation, have determinate political implications; in the language of the critical legal studies movement, the question of "tilt". On the basis of the American and Canadian jurisprudence surveyed, I conclude that there is a strong relationship between the judicial deployment of particular theories of the corporation and particular doctrinal results with respect to corporate rights claims. At the same time, the existence of jurisprudential counter-examples and anomalies suggests that while tilt exists, it is not always decisive. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). |
