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This book is informed in part by fifteen years of teaching students at UCL about Bentham’s thought. I am grateful to them for asking questions to which I had no answers, and contributing in many ways to my understanding of that thought (though I still lack the answers to some of the questions). Another important source of learning has been the parallel editing of parts of Bentham’s corpus for the ongoing critical edition of his writings, The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. I need to say a heartfelt thanks to Fred Rosen for giving me the opportunity to begin working on Bentham in 1993, and to Philip Schofield for renewing the opportunity in 2004.

Over the years, many Bentham scholars have been generous with their time and energy in discussion, and in reading and commenting on arguments, and I can only hope that I have been equally obliging. Singling out individuals is always invidious, but I would like to express particular thanks to Jean-Pierre Cléro, Doug Long, Stephen Engelmann, David Lieberman and Peter Niesen. Xiaobo Zhai deserves special thanks for asking too many questions to which I had no convincing answers, and obliging me to think anew. The public policy focus of the book has been present since the beginning, but developed considerably in exhaustive discussions with Malik Bozzo-Rey and Angela Marciniak in 2019. I am very grateful to both, and I hope they are not too disappointed with the result.

This book was written while holding a research fellowship awarded by the DFG Collaborative Research Centre SFB/TRR 138 ‘Dynamics of Security. Types of Securitization from a Historical Perspective’ at Philipps-University Marburg and Justus-Liebig University Giessen. I am deeply grateful to Professor Horst Carl and the Board of SFB/TRR 138 for the invitation, and to the staff of the Research Project for their unstinting efforts to make this Englishman feel welcome in Germany. The fact that I arrived in tandem with COVID-19 has meant that I have seen less of the country than I would have liked, but I have been deeply touched by the care for my welfare demonstrated by Professor Carl and the denizens of the ninth floor of the History tower, and in particular Mark Chaouali, Marina Kraft, Sarah Kramer and Eva-Maria Nitz (especially for making the effort to get me to speak German: es ist immer noch schlecht, aber ich werde mich mehr bemühen). I stand deeply in their debt.

I am grateful to Tim Causer and Benjamin Bourcier, who gave helpful feedback on drafts of chapters, and to Chris Riley, who read the whole text and assisted with troublesome references. My greatest debt is to Angela Marciniak, who has been a never-failing source of support, encouragement and constructive challenge, and who commented on the chapters as they were drafted, while the missteps that remain are mine alone. I cannot begin to return adequate recompense for her friendship and support, but I can say that without it this book would not have seen the light of day.

Parts of Chapters 3 and 4 originally appeared in a special issue of History of European Ideas, Indirect Legislation: Jeremy Bentham’s Regulatory Revolution (Bozzo-Rey, Brunon-Ernst and Quinn, 2017) (https://tandfonline.com). I am grateful to Taylor and Francis for permission to reproduce revised versions here.

I need to say thank you to three referees who reviewed the draft carefully and who all improved it, and finally to record my appreciation for the tact, patience and skill of George Owers and Julia Davies at Polity: working with whom has been a pleasure.