![]() ![]() justice: the law protects personal security, property, and human rights.accountability: the law applies equally to government and private actors.3 The rule of law is based upon four democratic principles: Rule of law requires that all citizens, including lawmakers and government officials, are similarly accountable-a stark contrast to dictatorship, autocracy, and oligarchy, where those in power are beyond the law’s purview. 2 Democracy focuses on how governments are selected the rule of law deals with how political power is exercised. An important factor has been the corresponding decline in respect for the rule of law, which provides the superstructure of democracy. There are many reasons for democracy’s decline. Meanwhile, democracy in the United States has taken a dangerous turn. Centralized authoritarian governments in Russia and China have put forward an alternative autocratic governance model and are striving for world leadership. In countries as diverse as Azerbaijan, Cambodia, and Egypt, authoritarian leaders have “snuffed out civil society, suborned or faked elections, asphyxiated free expression, and repressed human rights.” 1 Populist regimes are consolidating power in Europe and Latin America where citizens have lost faith in political institutions and rejected conventional leaders. Ambassador to Guatemala.ĭemocratic governments are under siege around the world from forces that threaten the basic principles of representative government-freely elected leaders, democratic institutions, and the rule of law. Ambassador Donald Planty is a Senior Advisor to the Albright Stonebridge Group and former U.S. Robert Perito is a Senior Peace Fellow at the Public International Law and Policy Group and former Director of the Center for Security Sector Governance at the U.S.
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