ABSTRACT
This chapter opens by distinguishing between the philosophical, doctrinal and sociological concepts of the rule of law. It sociologically analyses the rule of law as a double-coded genealogy of societal power and its legitimising social imaginary. The rule of law thus refers to both the self-constituted legal order of society and the symbolic order constituting the meaningful rule of polity. The authoritarian rule by law then shifts the problem of legitimation by legality to the problem of legitimation of legality itself. Nevertheless, the difference between formal and substantive concepts of the rule of law shows how the value-based legitimation of the rule of law paradoxically leads to the structural tensions and value conflicts in the rule of law. These tensions and conflicts are examined against the background of legal and political transformations in post-communist countries, their history of European integration including the rise of illiberal populism and its impact on the rule of law in the EU.
