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Article: The Fifth Republic: From the Droit de l'Etat to the Etat de droit?
- Article from:
- West European Politics
- Article date:
- October 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Frank Cass & Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Political scientists have once again become more interested in institutions, and even, at last, in the law. It is now generally accepted that individual and group preferences are embedded in and shaped by institutions, an historically-forged amalgam of bodies, rules, procedures, norms, customs, rites, which generates its own conventions, path dependencies and notions of appropriateness. Law plays a vital role in institutions: it is woven into the fabric of public and private action, it is a medium of conflict avoidance and resolution, and it is rooted in a set of pervasive political theories and ideological assumptions. Law is both the articulated expression of collective ...