On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory

Abstract

Just over a decade ago, fol!owing the almost total col!apse ofcommunism, it seemed to many observers to be the dawn of a new age, an age in which Western ideas of freedom, democracy, individual rights, and capitalism final!y would come to dominate, spreading their benefieent effeets to the many blighted parts of the globe that had previously rejected them in the name of Marxism, or traditional values, or anti-Westernism, or sorne " other self-defeating ideal. "The End ofHistory"¡ had arrived. Peaee and prosperity were about to' reign worldwide.