Fernández-Villaverde on Magna Carta, the Rule of Law, and the Limits on Government

Jesus Fernández-Villaverde, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, has posted Magna Carta, the Rule of Law, and the Limits on Government.  Cribbing from the introduction:

[W]hat is exactly the “rule of law”? This question is pertinent because, while jurists and politicians nearly unanimously praise this legal principle as a prerequisite for democracy and prosperity, scholars vehemently disagree about the actual content of this rule. As German lawyers love to say, law is full of indeterminate legal concepts (unbestimmte Rechtsbegri). And few concepts seem more indeterminate than the “rule of law.”