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What is the rule of law, and under what conditions does it become a self-reinforcing, stable order? Missing from the various literatures that have attempted an answer is a coherent attempt to create a satisfying account of the microfoundations of the behaviors that generate and sustain a distinctively legal order. Whether philosophical or applied, existing approaches to the rule of law have neglected the question of what, exactly, is distinct about law’s rule. We do not yet know enough about what sets legal ordering apart from other strategies of ordering, be they economic, political, or violent.1 This chapter responds to this lacuna. In so doing it gives an account of the kinds of things required for a positive theory of the rule of law.
The difference between the idea of the Rechtsstaat and that of the rule of law is more than a variation on a theme. Theorists and practitioners of law’s rule would do well not to equate – for analytical as well as practical reasons – the Anglo-American way of law with what Leonard Krieger called “the German idea of freedom.”2 And yet they have and will – to the detriment, I argue in this chapter, of understanding and prescription.
The rule of law is a sane idea gone big. Ever since Albert Venn Dicey, in 1885, popularized the phrase to describe the English way of law, it has left an indelible mark on societies the world over, and not always in a beneficial way.4 Unmoored from the context in which – and for which – it was first formulated, the idea has turned into a doctrine, some even think of it as an ideology. With its ancient origins, medieval roots, and modern instantiations, the idea of the rule of law – known by most, contested by many – has informed local and global ways of life like few other figments of our imagination.
This Companion provides an introduction to the theory and history of the rule of law, and thus to one of the most frequently invoked – and least understood – ideas of legal and political thought. Not so long ago, the “rule of law” was regarded as a rather esoteric expression, one employed by common lawyers – alongside such expressions as the Rechtsstaat, État de droit, and Stato di diritto that their continental confrères invoked – to identify certain technical features of the legal systems in which they worked.
The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law introduces students, scholars, and practitioners to the theory and history of the rule of law, one of the most frequently invoked-and least understood-ideas of legal and political thought and policy practice. It offers a comprehensive re-assessment by leading scholars of one of the world's most cherished traditions. This high-profile collection provides the first global and interdisciplinary account of the histories, moralities, pathologies and trajectories of the rule of law. Unique in conception, and critical in its approach, it evaluates, breaks down, and subverts conventional wisdom about the rule of law for the twenty-first century.