Rules alone stay empty unless institutions activate them

Evidence

In a sense, all rules, including secondary rules, are directives about how to behave. Our example of a secondary rule, for example, is after all a rule about how lawmakers should behave in New Mexico. Both kinds of rule are important, but both are only raw materials, components, parts of a legal system. We could master all the rules and still know very little about the legal system in operation. All we would have is words; and these words—​orders, commands, and rules—​are blank and empty, unless something happens, unless somebody does something to turn the words into action, and this, in turn, makes somebody move or something happen. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 53

Categorization

• DEFINE: Rules are raw material; the legal system is what turns them into action.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Rules without enforcement mechanisms are meaningless. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 143; Rules without concrete instances are meaningless hindrances — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 148; A rule only counts when enforced in practice — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 54 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Rules without enforcement mechanisms are meaningless. #corroborates (0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 143
• A rule only counts when enforced in practice #corroborates (0.93) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 54
• Rules without concrete instances are meaningless hindrances #qualifies (0.80) — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 148
• Obligatory rules grow fewer as their scope widens #expands (0.75)
• Communities comply minimally with donor rules while keeping their own governance practices operative #complicates (0.72) — Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, Institutional Bricolage and Commoning…, 113