Democratic accountability means that governments must be popularly accepted, with citizens empowered to replace corrupt or incompetent rulers.
Interpretation
Democratic accountability ensures that governments remain in power only by the consent of the governed, allowing citizens to remove those who fail in their duties.
In this quote, Raghuram Rajan emphasizes the essential nature of democratic accountability, suggesting that a government's legitimacy arises from its acceptance by the people. He argues that citizens must have the power to hold their leaders accountable and make choices about who governs them, especially in the face of corruption or incompetence, underscoring the importance of civic engagement in maintaining a healthy democracy.
In practice
This quote can be used in a political speech to emphasize the need for active citizen participation in democratic processes.
The U.S. should worry about the effects of its polices on the rest of the world. We would like to live in a world where countries take into account the effect of their policies on other countries and do what is right, broadly, rather than what is just right given the circumstances of that country.
Customers often value a good more when its price goes up. One reason may be its signaling value. An expensive handcrafted mechanical watch may tell time no more accurately than a cheap quartz model; but, because few people can afford one, buying it signals that the owner is rich.
The problem with forbearance is that it always looks like a good thing to do until it stops working.
Perhaps the hardest challenge has been to persuade the public, impatient for rapid growth, of the need to ensure stability first. Growth, it is argued, is always more important, regardless of the looming economic risks.
Too many years away from academia renders you pretty incompetent at research and teaching. So I had to go back.
The gap in India has always been between the promise and the execution.
Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No oneβ¦gets left behind. An instrument of good.
The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.
Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.
Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of.
The progress of democracy seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.
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