ABSTRACT
One of the remarkable features of the turmoil surrounding the counting and recounting of votes in the State of Florida in the 2000 US Presidential Election was the frequency with which "the Rule of Law" was invoked. Whether the antagonists in Florida knew it or not, they are in fact aspects of a venerable heritage of contestation that comes down to us as part and parcel of the Rule-of-Law tradition. The fact that "the Rule of Law" has always evoked this contestation has led some to surmise that an old article by a linguistic philosopher, W.B. Gallie, entitled, "Essentially Contested Concepts" might afford the most fruitful basis for approaching the analysis of the term. The Rule of Law is clearly an appraisive concept: it is deployed by almost all of its users to enter a favorable evaluation of the regimes or situations to which it applies.
