18 June 2025
Standing in the Face of Illiberal Elections
Venezuela held local and parliamentary elections on May 25th which Maduro’s allies won with an overwhelming majority. Even though Maduro had severely tilted the playing field in his favor, the regime did not have to alter the results from what was evident in the exit polls. This was partly because an important part of the opposition called for a boycott of the elections. We argue that for a beleaguered opposition, the question whether to boycott an election should reflect both pragmatic and strategic considerations of the prospects for democratic resistance. Continue reading >>
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19 February 2024
Trump’s Trials for Democracy
It is hard to imagine a stable democracy having to confront the legal challenges presented by Donald Trump’s bid for reelection. Courts have found him to be responsible for sexual assault, defamation and fraud, all in relatively quick succession. Taken together with repeated acts of demagogy and cruelty, the various legal proceedings reinforce the sense that Trump simply does not belong within the bounds of legitimate democratic contestation. But the charges against him thus far are civil claims that have no formal bearing on his bid for office. Nor do they seem to affect public opinion as the polarized electoral environment has little intermediate play that might be swayed by scandal, legal condemnation, or even the sense that enough is enough. Continue reading >>05 May 2022
Democracy Under Total War
Ukraine is engaged in an existential war for survival. One need not accept the full role of the exception from Carl Schmitt to acknowledge that the struggle to withstand a brutal assault on civilians transcends all other issues. Ukrainian constitutional law recognizes the need for exceptional powers during a state of emergency, as does every other constitutional order whether expressly or tacitly. Necessarily, a war for survival shifts authority from parliament to the executive and many of the founding principles of democracy may be suspended during the emergency, even such defining features of democracy as popular selection of the government. Continue reading >>
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29 April 2017
Safeguarding Democratic Institutions
A discussion of courts and populism begs for definitional boundaries. [...] Continue reading >>
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