Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy 9 Modern democrats tend to expand this notion of freedom beyond a citizen's ability to participate freely in most processes of governance. Such a view dwells on the needs of citizens to have freedom of information, speech and assembly (Mayo 1960: 65; Bobbio 1987: 25-26; Sen 1999: 146-159). Increasingly, civil, economic, cultural and other freedoms are reflected in what democratic theorists discuss as a necessary element of democratic rule. The historical concern with freedom as integral to democracy is reflected much by political theorists of the past three hundred years and has provided much impetus to the popularity of liberal democracy as a political model. The democratic identification with freedom has carried over into modern times. Consequently, even in contemporary discussions of substantive democracy, human freedom in its various forms—embedded in a general frame of human development—play a central role (Sen 2000; Sen in Diamond 2009; O'Donnell: 2004). A.1.1.4 Rule of Law. Yet another tenet of democracy nurtured early in classical Greek times and strengthening across the centuries is the idea that everyone is bound by law. Aristotle speaks of rightly constituted law as properly "the final sovereign." No citizen, no authority, however exalted his official 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 decisionmaking 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). A1.1.5 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