Law can make a social vision concrete and explicit, holding it up for all to see. This may be the promise of a king, a religious elite, a community, or a state, and it may be the means by which they seek to legitimate power. But once made explicit, that vision has a life of its own. Publicizing rules and judicial precedents gives them a fixity, hence authority, of their own. This is why law can be both an instrument of power and a means of resisting it.
