Broadly, two concepts of rule in a society have vied for supremacy in the political organisations of countries: a strong person (usually a man) versus systematised rules of institutions. The examples are Stalin, Mao and De Gaulle’s rule versus elected Churchill’s or Roosevelt’s governments. Western governments have largely been democratic, organised around institutions and laws.

It seems that the rule of strong persons is in ascendancy these days. Putin, Xi and Prince Mohammed bin Salman are some of the current rulers as persons, among many others. In recent times, another phenomenon has emerged, namely the rise of strong-person rule through elections. A strong person gets elected and assumes authoritarian powers with little or no democratic checks.

President Trump’s rule is a striking example of this process, namely, authoritarian rule by an elected person. It has reopened the question of whether persons or institutions are more important in the political order of a society. For a long time, most political philosophers have maintained that institutions and rules are the basis of a stable political order. Yet Trump’s rise in the US, the leading promoter of democratic rule in the world, highlights the process of a person’s rule installed by elections.

The........

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