Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

In Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future (2024), Joanna Kusiak examines the Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE) movement’s use of Article 15 of the German Constitution to contest corporate dominance in Berlin’s housing market. Winner of the 2023 Nine Dots Prize, Kusiak situates the DWE campaign within broader debates on law, democracy, and neoliberalism, arguing that legal systems are sustained by “legal fictions” that can be reimagined for emancipatory ends. Combining ethnography, historical analysis, and personal reflection, she traces the constitutional, corporate, and activist terrains through which the DWE movement pursued the socialization of housing. Drawing a parallel between Poland’s Solidarność movement and Berlin’s contemporary housing struggles, Kusiak positions radically legal politics as a form of practical revolution that reclaims law as a democratic and collective tool. Her work contributes to critical legal geography and urban studies by demonstrating how grassroots legal mobilization can expose and transform the political power embedded in property regimes.