The dimension of laws

from the use of generic notions to the measurem ent of the impondera­ble

Abstract

What is the content of laws? Is it possible to measure the quality of legislative production? Va­rious political science studies that have analyzed the content of laws have caused major im­pact on the development of theories related to public policies. Nevertheless, in spite of being plausible in theory, those studies have failed to introduce a valid classificatory instrument to empirically investigate the nature of law. This article attempts to offer a theoretic answer to the problem. In doing so, while analyzing a seemingly worthwhile connection among the Lowi’s typology, the Wilson’s approach, and Italian studies, we get to three criteria for classif­ying laws: generality; costs/benefits, and territorial impact. The use of these criteria proves right through the study of a specific kind of norm: the category of distributive policies.