The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, or ASPLP, is a learned society

Learned society

A learned society is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline/profession, as well a group of disciplines. Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some qualification, or may be an honor conferred by election, as is the case with the oldest learned societies,...

 founded in 1955 by political theorist Carl Friedrich. The ASPLP's annual thematic conferences form the foundation for the Nomos series. The ASPLP operates according to a distinctive three-discipline structure. Its annual meetings rotate on a three-year cycle, meeting in conjunction with the Association of American Law Schools

Association of American Law Schools

The Association of American Law Schools is a non-profit organization of 170 law schools in the United States. Another 25 schools are "non-member fee paid" schools, which are not members but choose to pay AALS dues. Its purpose is to improve the legal profession through the improvement of legal...

, the American Political Science Association

American Political Science Association

The American Political Science Association is a professional association of political science students and scholars in the United States. Founded in 1903, it publishes three academic journals...

, and the American Philosophical Association

American Philosophical Association

The American Philosophical Association is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly activity in philosophy, to facilitate the professional work...

 (Eastern Division). Its presidency rotates among the three disciplines, with vice-presidents always representing the other two. And its conferences consist of three lead papers, one from each discipline, each with two commentators from the other two disciplines.

Nomos has published work by some of the leading political and legal theorists of the twentieth century, from a wide range of ideological and methodological perspectives, including Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...

, Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin

Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century and a dominant liberal scholar of his generation...

, Lon Fuller, John Rawls

John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....

, Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...

, Michael Walzer

Michael Walzer

Michael Walzer is a prominent American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is co-editor of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at...

, Judith Shklar, Cass Sunstein

Cass Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration...

, Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....

, Richard Posner

Richard Posner

Richard Allen Posner is an American jurist, legal theorist, and economist who is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...

, Sheldon Wolin

Sheldon Wolin

Sheldon S. Wolin is a political philosopher. He is professor emeritus of Princeton University and a writer on contemporary politics. He is married to Emily Purvis Wolin.-Early life:He attended Oberlin College as an undergraduate...

, James Buchanan

James Buchanan

James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....

, Catharine MacKinnon

Catharine MacKinnon

Catharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...

, Jules Coleman

Jules Coleman

Jules Leslie Coleman is a scholar of law and jurisprudence. He is the Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School.-Biography:...

, Jean Hampton, Jon Elster

Jon Elster

Jon Elster is a Norwegian social and political theorist who has authored works in the philosophy of social science and rational choice theory...

, George Kateb

George Kateb

George Kateb is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Kateb, along with John Rawls and Isaiah Berlin, is credited with making significant contributions to liberal political theory...

, and Richard Epstein. The series was edited by Friedrich for volumes I-IX, coedited by J. Roland Pennock and John Chapman for volumes IX-XXXI, and edited by Chapman alone for XXXI-XXXV. Ian Shapiro

Ian Shapiro

Ian Shapiro, Ph.D., Yale University, 1983, J.D., Yale Law School, 1987, is Sterling professor of political science and Henry R. Luce director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, now called the MacMillan Center. His research interests center on sociological aspects of economics...

 edited volumes XXXV-XLII; Stephen Macedo, volumes XLII-XLVI; and Melissa Williams, XLVI-. Sanford Levinson

Sanford Levinson

Sanford Victor Levinson is a prominent American liberal law professor and acknowledged expert on Constitutional law and legal scholar and professor of government at the University of Texas Law School...

 will succeed Williams with volume LI. After Chapman's tenure ended, it became standard practice for each volume to have a guest co-editor, a position that also rotates among the three disciplines.

Presidents of the ASPLP have included:

• Carl J. Friedrich
• Charles M. Hendel
• Lon L. Fuller
  Lon L. Fuller
  -Selected secondary bibliography:* Robert S Summers .* W. J. Witteveen and Wibren van der Burg .-External links:* from Harvard University Library*...
  
  
• Frederick Watkins
• Richard B. Brandt
• Jerome Hall
• J. Roland Pennock
• John Rawls
  John Rawls
  John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
  
  
• Graham Hughes
  Graham Hughes
  Graham David Hughes is an adventurer, filmmaker, television presenter and Guinness World Records holder. He is currently presenting the television program “Graham’s World” on the National Geographic Adventure channel, a weekly look into his ongoing quest to break multiple world records by visiting...
  
  
• Sheldon Wolin
  Sheldon Wolin
  Sheldon S. Wolin is a political philosopher. He is professor emeritus of Princeton University and a writer on contemporary politics. He is married to Emily Purvis Wolin.-Early life:He attended Oberlin College as an undergraduate...
  
  
• John Ladd
• Paul A. Freund
  Paul A. Freund
  Paul A. Freund was an American jurist and law professor. He taught most of his life at Harvard Law School and is known for his writings on the United States Constitution and the Supreme Court of the United States....
  
  
• Judith N. Shklar
  Judith N. Shklar
  Judith Nisse Shklar was a political theorist, and the John Cowles Professor of Government at Harvard University.-Biography:...
  
  
• Alan Gewirth
  Alan Gewirth
  Alan Gewirth was an American philosopher, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, and author of Reason and Morality, , Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Applications , The Community of Rights , Self-Fulfillment , and numerous other writings in moral philosophy and political...
  
  
• Louis Henkin
  Louis Henkin
  Louis Henkin , widely considered one of the most influential contemporary scholars of international law and the foreign policy of the United States, was a former president of the American Society of International Law and of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy and University...
  
  
• Dennis Frank Thompson
  Dennis Frank Thompson
  Dennis Frank Thompson is a political scientist and professor at Harvard University, where he founded the university-wide Center for Ethics and the Professions...
  
  
• Joel Feinberg
  Joel Feinberg
  Joel Feinberg was an American political and social philosopher. He is known for his work in the fields of ethics, action theory, philosophy of law, and political philosophy as well as individual rights and the authority of the state...
  
  
• Kent Greenawalt
• Michael Walzer
  Michael Walzer
  Michael Walzer is a prominent American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is co-editor of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at...
  
  
• Martha Nussbaum
  Martha Nussbaum
  Martha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
  
  
• Frank Michelman
  Frank Michelman
  Frank Isaac Michelman is an American legal scholar and Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School.Michelman wrote the influential law review article, Property, Utility and Fairness, on the economic reasons for just compensation in the 5th Amendment Takings Clause in the United...
  
  
• Amy Gutmann
  Amy Gutmann
  Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Communications, and Philosophy...
  
  
• Will Kymlicka
  Will Kymlicka
  Will Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, and Recurrent Visiting Professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the...
  
  
• Donald L. Horowitz
  Donald L. Horowitz
  Donald L. Horowitz is James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke Law School and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States.He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1968 and also holds degrees from Syracuse University...
  
  

The volumes in the series, and their publishers, have been:

• I. Authority, Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
   1958
• II. Community The Liberal Arts Press, 1959
• III. Responsibility, The Liberal Arts Press, 1960
• IV. Liberty, Atherton Press, 1962
• V. The Public Interest, Atherton Press, 1962
• VI. Justice, Atherton Press, 1963
• VII. Rational Decision, Atherton Press, 1964
• VIII. Revolution, Atherton Press, 1966
• IX. Equality, Atherton Press, 1967
• X. Representation, Atherton Press, 1968
• XI. Voluntary Association, Atherton Press, 1969
• XII. Political and Legal Obligation, Atherton Press, 1970
• XIII. Privacy, Atherton Press, 1971
• XIV. Coercion, Aldine-Atherton Press 1972
• XV. The Limits of Law, Lieber-Atherton Press, 1974
• XVI. Participation, Lieber-Atherton Press, 1975
• XVII. Human Nature in Politics, New York University Press, 1977
• XVIII. Due Process, New York University Press, 1977
• XIX. Anarchism, New York University Press, 1978
• XX. Constitutionalism, New York University Press, 1979
• XXI. Compromise, New York University Press 1979
• XXII. Property, New York University Press 1980
• XXIII. Human Rights, New York University Press 1981
• XXIV. Ethics, Economics, and the Law, New York University Press 1982
• XXV. Liberal Democracy, New York University Press 1983
• XXVI. Marxism, New York University Press 1983
• XXVII. Criminal Justice, New York University Press 1983
• XXVIII. Justification, New York University Press 1985
• XXIX. Authority Revisited, New York University Press 1985
• XXX. Religion, Morality, and the Law, New York University Press 1988
• XXXI. Markets and Justice, New York University Press 1989
• XXXII. Majorities and Minorities, New York University Press 1990
• XXXIII. Compensatory Justice, New York University Press 1991
• XXXIV. Virtue, New York University Press 1992
• XXXV. Democratic Community. New York University Press 1993
• XXXVI. The Rule of Law, New York University Press 1994
• XXXVII. Theory and Practice, New York University Press 1995
• XXXVIII. Political Order, New York University Press 1996
• XXXIX. Ethnicity and Group Rights, New York University Press 1997
• XL. Integrity and Conscience, New York University Press 1998
• XLI. Global Justice, New York University Press 1999
• XLII. Designing Democratic Institutions, New York University Press 2000
• XLIII. Moral and Political Education, New York University Press 2001
• XLIV. Child, Family, and the State, New York University Press 2003
• XLV. Secession and Self-Determination, New York University Press 2003
• XLVI. Political Exclusion and Domination, New York University Press 2004
• XLVII. Humanitarian Intervention, New York University Press 2006

forthcoming from New York University Press:

• XLVIII. Toleration and Its Limits
• XLIX. Moral Universalism and Pluralism
• L. Transitional Justice
• LI. American Conservative Thought and Politics

The volumes originally published by Atherton, Aldine-Atherton, and Lieber-Atherton will be republished by Transaction Press beginning in 2007.