{"title":"Adrian Vermeule","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"judging-under-uncertainty-book-adrian-vermeule-9780674022102","title":"Judging under Uncertainty","description":"How should judges, in America and elsewhere, interpret statutes and the Constitution? Previous work on these fundamental questions has typically started from abstract views about the nature of democracy or constitutionalism, or the nature of legal language, or the essence of the rule of law. From these conceptual premises, theorists typically deduce an ambitious role for judges, particularly in striking down statutes on constitutional grounds. In this book, Adrian Vermeule breaks new ground by rejecting both the conceptual approach and the judge-centered conclusions of older theorists. Vermeule shows that any approach to legal interpretation rests on institutional and empirical premises about the capacities of judges and the systemic effects of their rulings. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from political science, economics, decision theory, and other disciplines, he argues that legal interpretation is above all an exercise in decisionmaking under severe empirical uncertainty. In view of their limited information and competence, judges should adopt a restrictive, unambitious set of tools for interpreting statutory and constitutional provisions, deferring to administrative agencies where statutes are unclear and deferring to legislatures where constitutional language is unclear or states general aspirations.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50262505652497,"sku":"CIN0674022106G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674022106.jpg?v=1750944649"},{"product_id":"law-and-the-limits-of-reason-book-adrian-vermeule-9780195383768","title":"Law and the Limits of Reason","description":"Human reason is limited. Given the scarcity of reason, how should the power to make constitutional law be allocated among legislatures, courts and the executive, and how should legal institutions be designed? In Law and the Limits of Reason, Adrian Vermeule denies the widespread view, stemming from Burke and Hayek, that the limits of reason counsel in favor of judges making \"living\" constitutional law in the style of the common law.  Instead, he proposes and defends a \"codified constitution\" - a regime in which legislatures have the primary authority to develop constitutional law over time, through statutes and constitutional amendments. Vermeule contends that precisely because of the limits of human reason, large modern legislatures, with their numerous and highly diverse memberships and their complex internal structures for processing information, are the most epistemically effective lawmaking institutions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50461377528081,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50461377757457,"sku":"GOR013961300","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195383761.jpg?v=1751227527"},{"product_id":"common-good-constitutionalism-book-adrian-vermeule-9781509548873","title":"Common Good Constitutionalism","description":"The way that Americans understand their Constitution and wider legal tradition has been dominated in recent decades by two exhausted approaches: the originalism of conservatives and the “living constitutionalism” of progressives. Is it time to look for an alternative?   Adrian Vermeule argues that the alternative has been there, buried in the American legal tradition, all along. He shows that US law was, from the founding, subsumed within the broad framework of the classical legal tradition, which conceives law as “a reasoned ordering to the common good.” In this view, law’s purpose is to promote the goods a flourishing political community requires: justice, peace, prosperity, and morality. He shows how this legacy has been lost, despite still being implicit within American public law, and convincingly argues for its recovery in the form of “common good constitutionalism.”   This erudite and brilliantly original book is a vital intervention in America’s most significant contemporary legal debate while also being an enduring account of the true nature of law that will resonate for decades with scholars and students.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50623235031313,"sku":"CIN1509548874VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51225267405073,"sku":"GOR013325427","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51488202555665,"sku":"NGR9781509548873","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51730754273553,"sku":"NIN9781509548873","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53003693064465,"sku":"CIN1509548874G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1509548874.jpg?v=1772704052"},{"product_id":"common-good-constitutionalism-book-adrian-vermeule-9781509548866","title":"Common Good Constitutionalism","description":"The way that Americans understand their Constitution and wider legal tradition has been dominated in recent decades by two exhausted approaches: the originalism of conservatives and the “living constitutionalism” of progressives. 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He shows how this legacy has been lost, despite still being implicit within American public law, and convincingly argues for its recovery in the form of “common good constitutionalism.”   This erudite and brilliantly original book is a vital intervention in America’s most significant contemporary legal debate while also being an enduring account of the true nature of law that will resonate for decades with scholars and students.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51031900356881,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51031902159121,"sku":"NIN9781509548866","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52140140658961,"sku":"NLS9781509548866","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1509548866.jpg?v=1750759865"},{"product_id":"constitution-of-risk-book-adrian-vermeule-9781107618978","title":"The Constitution of Risk","description":"The Constitution of Risk is the first book to combine constitutional theory with the theory of risk regulation. It argues that constitutional rulemaking is best understood as a means of managing political risks. Constitutional law structures and regulates the risks that arise in and from political life, such as an executive coup or military putsch, political abuse of ideological or ethnic minorities, or corrupt self-dealing by officials. The book claims that the best way to manage political risks is an approach it calls 'optimizing constitutionalism' - in contrast to the worst-case thinking that underpins 'precautionary constitutionalism', a mainstay of liberal constitutional theory. Drawing on a broad range of disciplines such as decision theory, game theory, welfare economics, political science and psychology, this book advocates constitutional rulemaking undertaken in a spirit of welfare maximization, and offers a corrective to the pervasive and frequently irrational distrust of official power that is so prominent in American constitutional history and discourse.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51189009809681,"sku":"GOR014195485","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51189110014225,"sku":"NIN9781107618978","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52616018297105,"sku":"NLS9781107618978","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52816878960913,"sku":"CIN1107618975VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1107618975.jpg?v=1750854302"},{"product_id":"system-of-the-constitution-book-adrian-vermeule-9780199838455","title":"The System of the Constitution","description":"A constitutional order is a system of systems. It is an aggregate of interacting institutions, which are themselves aggregates of interacting individuals. In The System of the Constitution, Adrian Vermeule analyzes constitutionalism through the lens of systems theory, originally developed in biology, computer science, political science and other disciplines. Systems theory illuminates both the structural constitution and constitutional judging, and reveals that standard views and claims about constitutional theory commit fallacies of aggregation and are thus invalid. By contrast, Vermeule explains and illustrates an approach to constitutionalism that considers the systemic interactions of legal and political institutions and of the individuals who act within them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51471793127697,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51471793881361,"sku":"GOR014293815","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52333506068753,"sku":"NLS9780199838455","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199838453.jpg?v=1751070719"},{"product_id":"law-and-the-limits-of-reason-book-adrian-vermeule-9780199914098","title":"Law and the Limits of Reason","description":"Human reason is limited. What are the consequences of this fact for the contested lawmaking claims between courts, legislatures and the executive branch? In light of the limits of reason, how should legal institutions be designed? In Law and the Limits of Reason, Adrian Vermeule criticizes the view that the limits of reason counsel in favor of judicial lawmaking in the style of the common law. He argues that there is no logical connection between the limits of reason, on the one hand, and the superiority of common law or of judge-made constitutional law on the other. The relatively small number of judges on relevant courts, their limited informational base and generalist rather than specialized skills, ensure that judicial reason is itself sharply limited and that the argument to judicial lawmaking from the limits of reason outruns the logical, causal, and evidentiary support.   Instead, Adrian Vermeule proposes and defends a \"codified constitution\" - a regime in which legislatures have the primary authority to develop constitutional law over time, through statutes and constitutional amendments. Precisely because of the limits of human reason, large modern legislatures, with their numerous membership, complex internal structures for processing information and their abundant informational resources, are the most effective lawmaking institutions. Law and the Limits of Reason, now in paperback, serves as a thought-provoking companion to any constitutional law course of study.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52333338362129,"sku":"NLS9780199914098","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780199914098.jpg?v=1758154432"},{"product_id":"mechanisms-of-democracy-book-adrian-vermeule-9780195333466","title":"Mechanisms of Democracy","description":"What institutional arrangements should a well-functioning constitutional democracy have?    Most of the relevant literatures in law, political science, political theory, and economics address this question by discussing institutional design writ large. In this book, Adrian Vermeule moves beyond these debates, changing the focus to institutional design writ small.   In established constitutional polities, Vermeule argues that law can and should - and to some extent already does - provide mechanisms of democracy: a repertoire of small-scale institutional devices and innovations that can have surprisingly large effects, promoting democratic values of impartial, accountable and deliberative government. Examples include legal rules that promote impartiality by depriving officials of the information they need to act in self-interested ways; voting rules that create the right kind and amount of accountability for political officials and judges; and legislative rules that structure deliberation, in part by adjusting the conditions under which deliberation occurs transparently or instead secretly.   Drawing upon a range of social science tools from economics, political science, and other disciplines, Vermeule carefully describes the mechanisms of democracy and indicates the conditions under which they can succeed.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52434963398929,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52434963890449,"sku":"NLS9780195333466","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780195333466.jpg?v=1759182109"},{"product_id":"constitution-of-risk-book-adrian-vermeule-9781107043725","title":"The Constitution of Risk","description":"The Constitution of Risk is the first book to combine constitutional theory with the theory of risk regulation. It argues that constitutional rulemaking is best understood as a means of managing political risks. 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