Keyword

Axes

Upper Left Quadrant Details Upper Right Quadrant Details Lower Left Quadrant Details Lower Right Quadrant Details Details

Quadrants

Outline

Law refers to "something fixed" or "in place" (OED). It is thus concerned with regularity, predictability.
The axes define direct versus indirect sources of law. On the vertical axis, state incorporates the most positivistic laws. At the other end, charisma captures the supernatural, mystical sources of law. While the vertical axis deals with principled sources of law, the horizontal axis is concerned with the institutional sources of law, whether by a delegated authority or through rules imposed on the law making process.
The prominence of the charismatic factor makes the lower left quadrant the place of divine law, the type of law with origins and mystery, with court as the direct off shoot of absolute rule. The ULQ refers to administrative law, an authority and legitimacy to make law based upon delegations of power from the legislature. The URQ is, in the most explicit terms, the quadrant of positive law -- the product of human will, with majority indicative of a variety of ways that rules are legitimized by "due process". In the LRQ, constitutional law is a "higher law" that allocates and distributes state power among existing (or new) institutions and also sets standards for the formal properties which a law must possess in order to be valid.