ABSTRACT
Law or politics? The question seems straightforward when posed “Are we to be a government of laws or men?” Or “Does Nation X operate under the rule of law?” In reality, the question of the relationship between law and politics is a profound and difficult one. How should a commitment to the rule of law shape or constrain politics and political behavior, especially the behavior of legal actors? How and in what ways does it? Is the outcome of Bush v. Gore the result of law, politics, or some complicated interaction between the two? Despite the centrality of issues related to the interaction of law and politics to the disciplines of political science and law, neither is as far along as we would hope in answering the normative and descriptive questions.
