An overarching question of contemporary constitutionalism is whether equilibriums devised prior
to the emergence of the modern administrative-industrial state can be preserved or recreated by
means of fundamental law. The book approaches this problem indirectly through the conceptual
lens offered by constitutional developments relating to the adoption of normative limitations
on the delegation of law-making authority. Three analytical strands (constitutional theory
constitutional history and contemporary constitutional and administrative law) run through the
argument. They merge into a broader account of the conceptual ramifications the phenomenon
and the constitutional treatment of delegation in a number of paradigmatic legal systems. As it
is argued the development and failure of constitutional rules imposing limits on legislative
delegation reveal the conditions for the possibility of classical limited government and
conversely the erosion of normativity in contemporary constitutionalism.
