AAROL ARTICLES
Alliance Members are speaking out in publications big and small, from local newspapers to national platforms. Please explore and share their written pieces below, which bring together insights from across diverse countries and ROL topics.
Have an idea for your own written piece, suggestions for an expert or topic, or connections with publications that may be interested in AAROL-supported pieces? Please get in touch with us at info@aarol.org.
How Will You Know That America Has Become a Dictatorship? After 20 Years Living in One, I Can Tell You.
Herb Bowman, Slate, October 29, 2025
It’s hard for most Americans to imagine what it would be like to live in a society without the rule of law protecting them. I spent more than 20 years leading U.S. government–sponsored justice projects in countries with weak to nonexistent democracies, including Albania, Mongolia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Republic of Georgia, and Armenia. Those of us who have worked in nations like these don’t have to imagine what it looks like when a place’s leaders demonstrate no regard for the rule of law. What we’ve seen overseas looks a lot like what we’ve started to watch unfold in this country over the course of the past 10 months. Some of these experiences abroad, when we see them happen here, offer the biggest clues that our own democracy is beginning to slip away… [READ MORE]
The Governmental Crisis Too Few Know About
Malcolm Russell-Einhorn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 27, 2025
Is our country approaching, or in, a constitutional crisis, as many pundits and ordinary citizens believe? Or, possibly in addition, a related but different crisis, a crisis many Americans don’t know about? That is a question important to ask, especially on this Constitution Day. I think the second… [READ MORE]
Riding Camels in Mongolia With Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: A journey of friendship and the rule of law
by Mary Noel Pepys, ABA Journal, August 27, 2025
When the conversation ended, I simply stared into space, stunned. I must have misheard the official from the U.S. Agency for International Development. This can’t be happening to me, I thought. “We would like you to accompany Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on her trip to Mongolia this fall to support democratic reforms,” he said. It was summer 2000, and I had just returned from Mongolia, where I helped develop the country’s first justice system strategic plan… [READ MORE at ABA] [Non-ABA Member Link]
Autocracy, Corruption, and Decline: Why Hungary and Orbanism Must Never be a Model for the U.S.
Michael Maya, Just Security, June 30, 2025
Hungary offers the U.S. a grim preview of what happens to a country — politically, economically, and socially — when it falls under the spell of a populist with autocratic leanings. Americans who reflexively buy into the rhapsodizing about Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban would be wise to closely examine his record since 2010, when he assumed power for the second time… [READ MORE]