Despotic governments include even highly institutionalized forms of rule in which the entity at the apex of the power structure (such as a king, a junta, or a party committee) is capable of acting without the constraint of law when it wishes to do so. Ideas about the rule of law have been central to political and legal thought since at least the 4th century bce, when Aristotle distinguished “the rule of law” from “that of any individual.”
