ABSTRACT
The American state “is like no other!” proclaims Richard Stillman (1999, 249). What might be regarded as a conceit, often expressed in the solipsistic phrase “American exceptionalism,” is forgivable, however. If there is a Westminster model of governance or a model of the state known as a Rechtsstaat, there is no equivalent category of states that includes, among others, the United States of America.1
