Hard-headed approaches have also held that because courts have neither purse nor sword, they cannot engage other major political institutions. The cost of that has been an inability to incorporate into political analysis the constitutionalist politics, both domestic and supranational, that have provided major points for political dispute in western states. An unwillingness to examine legal institutions systematically and comparatively has, therefore, impoverished our understanding both of American politics and of politics abroad. These complaints, common to those who work in comparative law and politics, are finally starting to become outdated as monographs, edited collections and symposia in journals have begun to appear. When attempts to synthesize work and frame it for students begin to appear, the possibility that the field is actually a field rather than a hope a few individual scholars have becomes real.
Most chapters tell several stories to state and illustrate basic themes about the legal system.
Because it has chapters on individual states, it is not as American-centered as a comprehensive text for American students can so easily be. Furthermore, while constitutionalist review looms large, as it so often does, each chapter also attends to basics of court structure within the national states they study. They also address the organization of criminal courts and the handling of personal injury claims. The essays in this collection run loosely in parallel. In a thoughtful and useful introductory essay, Herbert Jacob explicitly discusses the difficulties of determining what is to be compared and how they are to be compared.