Textbooks, including those designed to educate lawyers, often ignore the Council as a constitutional law-maker. Even in the popular press the Council enjoys an aura of neutrality, rationality and expertise that would be the envy of U.S. judges. The tendency toward reticence is strongest among those who follow the Council's jurisprudence most closely. Stone finds danger in the commitment to treating the work of the Council as separate from politics. The rise of the constitutional Council thus provides a backdrop for an equally engaging history of cultural difference in academe.
Stone shows that scholars too are bound by culturally- specific frames of reference.
To think otherwise is a conceit. Stone also shows, by example, the value of institutional analysis that sweeps broadly across the political landscape. This panorama provides the grounds for appreciating the significance of a new player in constitutional politics and for considering the viability of a system of abstract constitutional review as compared to other alternatives. Temple University Press.