Daniela Piana
University of Bologna
Session: Democracy, justice and stability
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SSH legacy: focusing on systems (political
systems, judicial systems, economic systems)
SSH dominant methodology: quantitative
analysis + macro trends
Policy guidelines: targeting rules and
structures which shape the systems
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Comparative approaches
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Analysis of macro and long term changes
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Baseline for inter – governmental and inter –
institutional cooperation
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The gap between structures and functions
The rules that shape the policy field do not
determine the policy implementation
processes
The policy timeframe creates an unavoidable
gap between the lives of citizens and the
systems where they live
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Provide a new insight about the empirical
dimensions that a macro scale and systemic
approach does not take into account
Provide sound and reliable methodologies to
go beyond the anedoctic treatment of the
micro processes and create analytical
framework that can support a citizens –
oriented approach to the institutional analysis
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No! This is the claim for a mix
methodological approach
SSH should be powerful and insightful
enough to go “micro” and keep an eye on the
macro level
How?
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Two faces targeted by the mainstream
Courts as institutional devise to enforce
fundamental rights
Courts systems as an institutional devise to
hold the legislative and the executive
branches accountable and answerable to the
law
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The demand of justice
The pre legal and pre judicial dimension of
the rule of law
The expectations citizens address to the
judicial and the legal institutions
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Toward a three dimensions notion of rule of
law
Demand of rights and justice
The court system and the checks and balances
The rights enforcement mechanisms
Communities and
groups focused
analyses of the
demand of justice
Empirical analysis of
the way judicial
institutions actually
work (beyond the
formal rules)
Empirical analysis of
the conditions created
for the right
enforcement be
accessible to all,
reliable and efficient