Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 History of UN Intervention and the Rule of Law after Civil War
- 3 Conceptual Framework: Civil War through a Legal Lens
- 4 Theoretical Framework: Restoring the Rule of Law after Civil War
- 5 Cross-national Evidence: UN Intervention and the Rule of Law across Africa
- 6 Sub-national Evidence I: The Rule of Law and Its Discontents in Liberia
- 7 Sub-national Evidence II: Evaluating the UN from the Bottom-Up
- 8 Sub-national Evidence III: UN Intervention and the Rule of Law in Liberia
- 9 Implications for Africa and beyond
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Conceptual Framework: Civil War through a Legal Lens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 History of UN Intervention and the Rule of Law after Civil War
- 3 Conceptual Framework: Civil War through a Legal Lens
- 4 Theoretical Framework: Restoring the Rule of Law after Civil War
- 5 Cross-national Evidence: UN Intervention and the Rule of Law across Africa
- 6 Sub-national Evidence I: The Rule of Law and Its Discontents in Liberia
- 7 Sub-national Evidence II: Evaluating the UN from the Bottom-Up
- 8 Sub-national Evidence III: UN Intervention and the Rule of Law in Liberia
- 9 Implications for Africa and beyond
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The rule of law is a necessary condition for sustained peace, good governance, and economic growth. Yet for all its importance as a policy goal, the rule of law as a concept remains widely misunderstood. This chapter develops a conceptual framework for understanding the necessary conditions for the rule of law in countries where the state is just one of many providers of security, justice, and other public goods. The chapter begins by reviewing the most prominent definitions of the rule of law from both policy and scholarly circles. These definitions are grounded in the experiences of rich Western countries, and are generally inappropriate for the developing world, and for post-conflict settings in particular. The chapter then proposes a more unified definition that preserves the attractive features of existing accounts while introducing additional dimensions that better capture the nuances of legality and daily life in countries recovering from civil war.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020