The Executive Unbound

Legal scholars Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule argue that the great complexity of the modern world produces a concentration of power, particularly in the White House. The authors chart the rise of executive authority and they look at the legislation which was designed to limit the presidency, but failed to do so. Political, cultural and social restraints, they argue, have been more effective in preventing dictatorship than any law. Indeed, the executive-centered state tends to generate political checks that substitute for the legal checks of the constitution.