Law and Leviathan

Law and Leviathan

by Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 15/09/2020

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Winner of the Scribes Book Award


“As brilliantly imaginative as it is urgently timely.”

—Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Harvard Law School


“At no time more than the present, a defense of expertise-based governance and administration is sorely needed, and this book provides it with gusto.”

—Frederick Schauer, author of The Proof


A highly original framework for restoring confidence in a government bureaucracy increasingly derided as “the deep state.”


Is the modern administrative state illegitimate? Unconstitutional? Unaccountable? Dangerous? America has long been divided over these questions, but the debate has recently taken on more urgency and spilled into the streets. Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that the administrative state can be redeemed so long as public officials are constrained by morality and guided by stable rules. Officials should make clear rules, ensure transparency, and never abuse retroactivity, so that current guidelines are not under constant threat of change. They should make rules that are understandable and avoid issuing contradictory ones.


These principles may seem simple, but they have a great deal of power. Already, they limit the activities of administrative agencies every day. In more robust form, they could address some of the concerns of critics who decry the “deep state” and yearn for its downfall.


“Has something to offer both critics and supporters…a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate over the constitutionality of the modern state.”

Review of Politics


“The authors freely admit that the administrative state is not perfect. But, they contend, it is far better than its critics allow.”

Wall Street Journal

ISBN:
9780674249813
9780674249813
Category:
Constitutional & administrative law
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
15-09-2020
Language:
English
Publisher:
Harvard University Press
Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, where he is founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is the most cited law professor in the United States and probably the world. He has served as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and as a member of the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. He is the winner of the 2018 Holberg Prize. His many books include the bestseller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler), Simpler: The Future of Government, and Republic.com. A frequent adviser to governments all over the world and a columnist for Bloomberg View, he is married to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

Adrian Vermeule

Adrian Vermeule is Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School. His many books include Law’s Abnegation: From Law’s Empire to the Administrative State and The Constitution of Risk.

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