This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 2, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

A robust civil society means that any government that wants to control it will run into problems.

That's one of the reasons Peter Shook argues in his new book,

Why Government Fails So Often and how it can do better.

He spoke at the Cato Institute in March.

I'm delighted to be here at the Cato Institute to present a book that I fear may seem from its title like I'm bringing

calls to Newcastle, why government fails so often.

This is after all the Cato Institute.

And so this message will be I think affirming to you

but what I hope to suggest is that you may not fully appreciate the reasons why government fails or the magnitude of the failure

and how it might be, those, might be remedied.

That is to say, most of the discussion

about government failures are highly theoretical, deeply, deeply politically philosophical

level rather than at an analytical level

based on empirical evidence.

And so that's, if I have a contribution

to make to the people at Cato, that may be

to enrich that

evidence for conclusions that you probably have no need

for a fortification about.

I'm also delighted to be on a panel with Wally Olson, with whom I've worked

...