Tolstoy's novel, Anna Karenina, starts famously with the observation that\All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own fashion. The opposite is more nearly true in respect to the rule of law. Though many societi with differing governance structures and legal systems adhere in their own ways to the ule of law, societies that derogate from it do so in more similar fashion. Put differently it is easier to identify departures from the rule of law than to explain why particular ac-