Condoleezza Rice

What are the cornerstones of democracy? If you ask Condoleezza Rice who, as the sixty-sixth US secretary of state, was responsible for introducing democracy to autocratic states like Afghanistan and Iraq, her answer would go something like this: the right to speak one’s mind; freedom from arbitrary rule; leaders empowered by popular consent; equilibrium between the three branches of government and between federal and state power, minorities and the majority, state and society.