Beyond l'Etat de droit

This project engages the pursuit of a new framework to analyze, monitor, assess the rule of law and the quality of justice in developed and consolidated democracies. It focuses on both State-based and society-based mechanisms of conflicts settlement and on the social values and representations that are at their basis. It draws inspiration from a vast scholarship which has addressed over the last four decades or so both the rule of law and the quality of justice. It then relies on the rich sociological literature which focuses on the social dimension of the law and investigates the socio-legal phenomena from the micro point of view – actors’ beliefs, expectations, and perceptions of justice and of the law – as well as from the macro point of view – social systems and legal systems in their multiple and complex interactions.