The Risk from Authoritarian Impulses

We want a government of laws, not men', said John Adams in 1780. Cicero similarly told us that 'we are all servants of the law in order that we may be free'. The rule of law over the rule of men is indeed an unqualified good. Having a constitution is not, in itself, a great achievement; Hitler too had the Weimar constitution, and so have there been constitutions in the erstwhile Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but they were devoid of any 'constitutionalism'-the idea that limits the powers of government.

Once again, democratically elected leaders across the world are turning authoritarian, and the real threat to democratic governance today is from the ballot, not the bullet; the era of military coups is over. This global trend is clearly visible in Poland, Hungary, the