Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Courts and Bureaucracies: Renewing the Rule of Law in Our Times

Courts and Bureaucracies: Renewing the Rule of Law in Our Times

Burns, Robert P.

Paperback

General LawGeneral Political ScienceGeneral Sociology

PREORDER - Expected ship date December 21, 2026

ISBN10: 0226854043
ISBN13: 9780226854045
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: Dec 21 2026
Pages: 280
Weight: 1.00
Language: English

A novel meditation on how courts and bureaucracies function today and how they can be made better.

We live in a highly bureaucratic society, so much so that we often don't even see it. Although we think of bureaucracies and courtrooms as different kinds of institutions, as Robert P. Burns argues in Courts and Bureaucracies, their functions and everyday operations often blur together. Today, courts are being used to address numerous social problems that the government is unable or unwilling to tackle, and consequently, the courts frequently emphasize bureaucratic goals--such as efficiency and social control--over the adjudicatory functions that they are supposed to embody.

Drawing on social theory, philosophy, public administration, and law, Burns clarifies the role of courts in today's bureaucratic society and considers the distinctive contributions that specifically legal procedures can bring. After exploring the competing first principles of adjudication, Burns then examines our current administrative, civil, and criminal processes and describes new and looming changes to rules and practices that should affect our thinking about the rule of law and the role of the courts.

A broad reassessment--both philosophical and practical--of how criminal, civil, and administrative practices differ from one another and what benefits each bestows, Courts and Bureaucracies offers concrete suggestions for how we can better achieve the ideals already implicit in our judicial traditions and practices.

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