Rule of law democracy

A state governed by the rule of law binds its actions to universally binding, equal law; for norms can only be universally binding if they apply equally to all involved. In this context, all who belong to a state, regardless of ethnic, religious, economic, social, or political differences, constitute a people. This people can freely decide according to which rules it organizes itself as a state, to what extent it should have direct control, and by whom it wishes to be represented.

The rule of law and democracy are therefore mutually dependent: Democracy can only thrive if its decisions are effectively enforced, which requires a functioning state. The rule of law, in turn, requires equal legal norms that are democratically established.

A democracy governed by the rule of law, in this sense, guarantees both: the individual rights of all citizens and the capacity for collective action—a set of attributes that is not necessarily guaranteed according to the currently common conception of liberal democracy. This is because conventional notions of liberalism, particularly economic liberalism, favor a comparatively weak state. Conversely, according to economic liberalism, the participants are by no means always equal; indeed, liberal, especially libertarian, thinking can even preclude equality and thus promote unlimited economic power. Consider the cooperation between dictatorships and big business at the expense of the general public—as in the case of the Chilean Pinochet dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s and the increasingly autocratic profile of the current Trump administration.