"Democracy's Power Dilemma," from Jon Gould at NYU's Democracy Project

My new NYU colleague, Jon Gould, published a thoughtful essay on the tensions between designing democratic institutions to enable effective governance versus constraining democratic governments to avoid abuses of power. Here’s an excerpt:

One familiar challenge of constitutional design, made newly relevant in the era of backsliding, concerns the problem of government power: in short, how easy or hard it should be for government to act. The perils of unchecked government power are obvious. There are countless ways for an unchecked government to undermine democracy, including by seeking to undermine free and fair elections, trample individual rights, or repress political opponents and minority groups. (These concerns may be especially acute for chief executives, who can act with what Hami