Accountability can never be continuous and therefore stands in tandem with trust. Trust, which comes from accountability and openness, and also protects them, is a thread running through the whole of the democratic political order. It is a crucial component of political legitimacy. Institutionalising the principle of autonomy means specifying rights and obligations, which have to be substantive, not just formal. Rights specify the privileges which come with membership of the polity but they also indicate the duties which individuals have vis a vis each other and the political order itself.
Duties specify the price that has to be paid for the rights accorded.
In a democratic polity, rights and duties are negotiated, and can never be simply assumed - in this respect they differ decisively from, for example, the medieval droit de seigneur or other rights established simply by virtue of an individual's social position. Rights and duties thus have to be made a focus of continual reflexive attention. Democracy, it should be emphasised, does not necessitate sameness, as its critics have often asserted. It is not the enemy of pluralism. Rather, as suggested above, the principle of autonomy encourages difference - although it insists that difference should not be penalised.