Democratic and Constitutional Principles

Structural principles governing how legitimately held power is distributed, exercised and constrained: checks and balances between branches of government, the rule of law as the principle that governmental power itself is bound by law, majority rule constrained by minority rights, and polycentric governance as multiple, overlapping centers of decision-making authority rather than one central hierarchy. Belongs here: a principle describing how power should be structured or limited once a government holds it. Does not belong here: a theory of why the government holds that power in the first place, grouped under Legitimacy and Political Authority.