Conceptualizing and Measuring Modern Democracy 9 times and strengthening across the centuries is the idea that everyone is bound by law. Aristotle speaks of rightly constituted law as properly "the nal sovereign." No citizen, no authority, however exalted his ofcial status in governance may be, is above the law. Democracy's active rulers – those comprising the polity's ruling administration – are all viewed as subject to the law located in the polity's Constitution, the legal enactments of legislative and quasi-legislative bodies and the dispositive pronouncements of judicial agencies. Formally crafted law as well as established traditions that pass for law are what the rule of law contemplates as controlling the actions of democratic subjects. The singular import of a doctrine that exalts the rule of law is best understood as a rejection of tyrannical, authoritarian decision-making and the personal and whimsical style of governance that historically plagued non-democratic societies. So emphatic is the concern for rule of law that it becomes the ultimate sine qua non for democratic theorists like Bobbio (1987:156). The rule of law component clearly links to overall government effectiveness. For better or worse, the rule of law markedly depends on the ability of ruling authorities to effectively govern their polity (Wenzel, 2002). Public Accountability. Democracy's listing of constituent elements cannot be complete without the idea of public accountability. As a matter of fact, this is treated by some scholars as a sine qua non in any attempt to delineate the main features of democracy (Mayo, 1960:56-60). The sovereign people or citizenry may be the ultimate source of power and political legitimacy but if they have no reliable mechanisms for exacting accountability from the authorities that they install in power, the claims for democratic rule would ring hollow. Political authorities and agencies that systematically violate their mission of rule for the people – a betrayal that is often facilitated by instruments of mass deception and undertaken in the worst cases with impunity – do not permit even established democracies to last for long. In polities struggling to initiate or sustain democratization, the continuing lack of effective political accountability is indicative of failed democratization. For a polity to deserve democratic status even at a minimal level, this defect must not be present. Accountability mechanisms initially are associated with credible elections, when people choose to replace with new authorities those that have shown themselves less than competent in discharging the functions of ruling. Besides elections, constitutionally-mandated processes of recall, impeachment, referenda and the more regular criminal prosecution of erring authorities are part of a polity's accountability measures. In theory as well as in practice, the ultimate exercise of political accountability takes place when an entire nation engages in a forcible displacement of the ruling authorities. A Conceptual Conundrum of Sorts Given the lead ideas that has informed democratic theorizing across the years, one might be led to expect that a consensual if not altogether precise and