A tradition of law as external restraint on rulers is distinctive to the West

Evidence

Rule of law. The concept of the centrality of law to civilized existence was inherited from the Romans. Medieval thinkers elaborated the idea of natural law according to which monarchs were supposed to exercise their power, and a common law tradition developed in England. During the phase of absolutism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the rule of law was observed more in the breach than in reality, but the idea persisted of the subordination of human power to some external restraint: “Non sub homine sed sub Deo et lege.” The tradition of the rule of law laid the basis for constitutionalism and the protection of human rights, including property rights, against the exercise of arbitrary power. In most other civilizations law was a much less important factor in shaping thought and behavior. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 189

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader project claim (Ch. 2) that civilization identity is defined partly by shared values; this is a specific institutional inheritance test. — connects to: The exclusionary rule is an American anomaly among the world’s legal systems — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1834
• DEFINE: Defines the rule-of-law tradition as one of Huntington’s eight distinguishing features of Western civilization.