When ‘Good’ Citizens Say No: Bad Laws and Law-Abidingness

Abstract

‘The rule of law’ is such an oft-used phrase that it has almost become a cliché. It seems incapable of inspiring the genuine awe that is quite properly its due—and which may be fundamental to its success in extended, populous regimes such as ours. In the world’s oldest democratic republic, perhaps we shouldn’t even pretend to be surprised at this. After all, a regime founded on a base of ‘new science of politics’ comes into being with an inherent suspicion about ancient ways and ideas (Hamilton, 1961). Nevertheless, it doesn’t take much observation of the contemporary post-Soviet world to realize that our political stepchildren, the fragile democracies and republics of every continent, are struggling precisely because one of their key deficiencies is any kind of tradition in which law (rather than men or force) truly rules. Lacking that particular tradition, it is hardly surprising that the complementary one of ‘law-abidingness’ is similarly absent among those who not so very long ago were subjects rather than citizens.