Rule of law makes power context-free and universally mobilizable

Evidence

If it happens that the power-code is linked with the binary schematism of legality/illegality and this link is made universally relevant, there are wide-ranging consequences for the degree to which power is technicalized, i.e. its availability made relatively context-free. … The person who in that situation is in the right then has the power also to mobilize power. He does not have to rely on the ‘help’ of those around him – which is, as we know, a not very reliable mechanism in highly differentiated societies40 – but has at his disposal a direct line to the power-holder, which he can activate according to previously established rules. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 673

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines power ‘technicalization’ — making power availability context-free through the legality/illegality code.
• XREF: connects to: The system’s celebrated freedoms function as instruments of domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 45; The Rule of law separates universal laws from particular administrative measures — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 910; Republican freedom can be equated with an extended rule of law — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 32 (+3 more)