In this book Professor Michael Gerhardt provides the first comprehensive effort to use both social science methods and conventional legal analysis to explain the role of precedent in constitutional law. His analysis demonstrates how precedent influences more than social scientists claim, but less than most scholars claim. He further shows how precedent, broadly understood, performs multiple significant but underappreciated functions in constitutional decision making both inside courts and outside of them. Last, but not least, his analysis explains a fundamental tension in constitutional adjudi ... More

In this book Professor Michael Gerhardt provides the first comprehensive effort to use both social science methods and conventional legal analysis to explain the role of precedent in constitutional law. His analysis demonstrates how precedent influences more than social scientists claim, but less than most scholars claim. He further shows how precedent, broadly understood, performs multiple significant but underappreciated functions in constitutional decision making both inside courts and outside of them. Last, but not least, his analysis explains a fundamental tension in constitutional adjudication in which precedent is generally respected as an abstract principle but particular precedents rarely constrain the decisions of courts and nonjudicial actors.