Democratic Fragility: Eroding Norms and the Authoritarian Threat in America
What We Can Learn from Putin’s Russia?
Hello, it’s Aron, DOXA’s newsletter editor, bringing you all things Russia—in English.
It’s been just three months since Donald Trump took office, and his administration’s rampage through Washington has been nothing short of astounding. As an American-born citizen with parents who emigrated from Soviet Russia, watching an administration of sycophants tear through the authoritarian playbook—detaining and deporting individuals without due process, branding independent media as “enemies from within,” and threatening to impeach judges—has been particularly painful.
Yet what has been most difficult to come to terms with is the slow, lukewarm reaction of the American public. My European, Russian, and Ukrainian friends keep asking me—where are the protests? Where is the outrage, beyond small groups of furloughed USAID employees demonstrating outside their former offices? Perhaps this reflects the broader atomization of our society. To a progressive American activist advocating for Palestine, the gutting of federal institutions may still seem distant, not yet recognized as a sign of creeping authoritarianism.
But maybe the issue runs even deeper: many Americans simply don’t know what authoritarianism is or how it manifests. Those of us who study Russia and other authoritarian regimes often forget that these systems remain foreign to most people, especially Americans, who have never experienced them firsthand.
As political scientist Dr. Noah Buckley—who’s devoted his career to studying Putin’s Russia—eloquently lays out in the following piece, democracy is fragile. It is up to us—those who have lived under authoritarianism or study it—to raise our voices and illuminate what is happening in the U.S. We hope this piece does just that.
By Noah Buckley
Much of the world looks on with shock as President Donald Trump has swiftly set about undermining democracy in the United States upon his return to the Oval Office in January 2025. Assumptions that many Americans and non-Americans alike have made for decades about the resilience of the rule of law and norms of political behavior in the world’s oldest democracy have been dashed by a flurry of illegal and questionable actions by the returning president.
These moves, however, may be starkly familiar to observers of authoritarian politics around the globe. Often celebrated as a sort of zenith of governance, democracy is an intricate structure built upon a shaky foundation of norms. These norms are inherently fragile and can never be self-enforcing, and will always be subject to erosion from malicious actors.
As a scholar of Russian politics and authoritarian regimes, I am deeply aware of how the gradual erosion of these norms can pave the way for authoritarianism. Donald Trump’s resurgence in American politics has underscored this fragility, raising the specter of democratic erosion and the insidious creep of authoritarian, patrimonial rule in the United States.
Interlocking Norms
Democracy is, at its essence, a system of norms—an equilibrium sustained by the shared belief that everyone else will follow the agreed-upon rules. This delicate balance is what facilitates the peaceful transfer of power, upholds the rule of law, and ensures the ultimate accountability of leaders to their citizens.
Modern democracy is the first durable institutional arrangement in human history where people regularly, peacefully, and voluntarily give up their own political power. This is awe-inspiring to consider. Yet, such unprecedented rotation of political power is both democracy’s greatest strength as well as its most profound vulnerability.
The fragility of democratic norms lies in their reliance on collective belief and adherence. Norms are never self-enforcing and they have no power in and of themselves; they require constant public participation and vigilance. It is only by continuously observing the law and common rules being applied fairly to everyone that we can build up the cooperation and mutual forbearance that a healthy civic life requires. This essence of civil society ultimately lives in our own willingness to stand up and speak out.
When these norms are violated, the happy equilibrium can quickly unravel, leading to a vicious cycle of democratic erosion. This erosion is not a sudden shift, but rather an accumulation of norm violations and small steps towards an uneven electoral playing field or towards paternalistic governance, as we have seen play out in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. As political scientists like Adam Przeworski and others have observed, the erosion of democracy is a gradual process, often imperceptible until the system has been fundamentally transformed.
While democratic norms, the rule of law, and attendant institutions are much more entrenched in the United States than they ever were in Russia—which adopted a democratic constitution in 1993 but saw backsliding well before Putin assumed the presidency—observers of American politics today can still learn much from how he consolidated power in Russia.
The Gradual Erosion of Norms
Donald Trump’s reemergence has been marked by a series of alarming developments that point to a potential—if not already arrived—constitutional crisis.
By rejecting the principle that the law constrains executive power—evident in verbal attacks on judges who blocked certain executive orders—the Trump administration is undermining the very foundation of democratic governance.This disregard implies that the president can interpret the law to suit personal or political interests, a dynamic reminiscent of many periods of Vladimir Putin’s rule in Russia.
Putin was able to gradually co-opt, weaken, eliminate, or manipulate the institutions of the Russian state and fledgling democracy, ensuring that the rule of law is subordinated to the whims of the executive. Once combative and independent political parties have been brought to heel, electoral fraud has become widespread, and even the courts have been brought under regime control. One can even see how Russia’s regional governments have been integrated into the vertical of power, losing independent fiscal and policy authority as federalism has been eroded.
The shift from competence to loyalty within the administrative state is another hallmark of this erosion. In authoritarian regimes, leaders often face a tradeoff between appointing loyal viziers they can trust and competent underlings who can effectively manage the state. This shift is evident in the current administration’s efforts to undermine the civil service and the administrative state, prioritizing loyalty over competence.
The politicization of the military and the judiciary further exacerbates this trend, as these institutions are increasingly seen as tools for consolidating power rather than independent arbiters of justice and security. The replacement of the Joint Chiefs, slow-walking and disobeying court orders around federal employees, and unlawful persecution of legal migrants are frightening first steps in this trend.
These changes, too, harken back to a regime in Russia that has worked to rein in potential opposition and eliminate elements who could pose a threat of disloyalty. Full control over the Duma, Russia’s parliament, along with its political parties, the gradual elimination of dissenting governors as independent political forces, and assassinations of opposition figures like Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov serve as stark examples.
The Ambiguity of Democratic Erosion
The gradual nature of democratic erosion also introduces elements of ambiguity that work to the advantage of would-be autocrats. As political scientist Rory Truex and others have noted, democracy erodes in a grey zone in which it is difficult to demarcate the precise moment when a system crosses the threshold from democratic to authoritarian. This ambiguity allows authoritarian tendencies to take root under the guise of normal politics, making it harder for the public and institutions to recognize and resist the encroachment of authoritarianism.
For example, President Putin has maintained much of the democratic legitimacy that he entered office with despite a clear degradation in democracy. Much of his legitimacy hinges on the fact that he destroyed any viable opposition. It remains to be seen how far President Trump will go in following Putin’s example in descending into competitive authoritarianism.
The use of the “popular mandate” as a justification for authoritarian measures is a common tactic in this grey zone of illiberal democracy—one that is a linchpin of Putin’s continued rule. By claiming to represent the true voice of the people, leaders can undermine democratic institutions and norms while portraying their actions as democratic. This narrative can be particularly effective in polarized, atomized societies, where trust in institutions is low and partisan identities are strong. In the United States, the deepening polarization of the electorate and the proliferation of partisan media have created a landscape where the “popular mandate” can be wielded as a weapon against democratic governance.
The Specter of Violence
One of the most chilling aspects of authoritarian politics is the role of violence—explicit or implicit—in maintaining power. In authoritarian systems, political control is predicated on an ever-present threat of violence, with dissent suppressed through a coercive apparatus when softer measures such as propaganda and censorship fail. In the United States, violence has already clearly emerged on the political playing field, from the January 6 insurrection to assassination attempts on then-candidate Trump to online threats against political opponents. This normalization of violence undermines the foundational principles of democratic governance, creating a climate of fear and intimidation that can stifle dissent and erode the foundations of the rule of law.
The threat that state power unchecked by democracy or the rule of law poses is all too visible in recent arrests and deportations in the US. American security services are blatantly ignoring due process and other tenets of the law as they persecute migrants, academics, students, and others. These actions frightfully echo the Putin regime’s attacks on dissidents, activists, journalists, and lawyers over the years.
The erosion of democratic norms can be further exacerbated by personalization of power and the introduction of elements of a cult of personality. In authoritarian regimes, leaders often cultivate a public image that portrays them as the sole guardians of national stability and sovereignty, much like Vladimir Putin has done during his nearly 25 years in seats of power in Russia. We can see this is Putin’s increasingly tsar-like personal presentation, co-optation of the church, and concentration of political and media discourse around his own person.
This dynamic is starting to appear in the new Trump administration’s framing of political opposition as a threat to the nation, with dissenting voices portrayed as enemies of the people. The personalization of power undermines the institutional framework of democracy, creating a system where the will of the leader supersedes the rule of law. Much as Putin was able to bend Russia’s institutions to his whims by pointing to external and internal threats that he was best positioned to defend the country against, Trump has so far seized the opportunity—often with support or acquiescence of the judiciary and Congress—to attack opponents and present himself as exceptional, above the law or normal political norms.
Institutional Guardrails and the Limits of Authoritarianism
Nevertheless, despite these worrying trends, we should recognize the institutional guardrails that differentiate the United States from more overtly authoritarian regimes like the one Putin has built. The US’s strongly federal system, with its decentralized power structures, could provide a significant barrier to a slide into competitive authoritarianism. States and local governments have the authority to resist federal overreach, and the pluralistic nature of American society in general and civil society in particular creates multiple centers of power that can challenge drifts towards authoritarian tendencies. Where Putin was able to fairly easily establish his “vertical of power” and trample on shaky democratic norms—eliminating and then subjugating gubernatorial elections, cowing economic elites, and dramatically shifting the electoral playing field in his favor—Trump would find this a much more complicated task.
However, these institutions are not immune to erosion, and the gradual undermining of democratic norms can weaken even the most resilient guardrails. The politicization of the Supreme Court and lower courts, coupled with a growing willingness to challenge judicial authority, could certainly erode these bulwarks. Similarly, the erosion of trust in traditional media and the rise of alternative information ecosystems have created a landscape where it is not always clear that everyone shares the same basic facts. Without dialogue or a shared epistemic environment, even American democracy may become difficult to sustain.
A Critical Juncture for American Democracy
Authoritarian rule thrives on coercion and lies—its greatest strength and its inevitable lure for the unscrupulous. It is also its weakness. As Václav Havel argues in The Power of the Powerless (1978)—cited recently by political scientist Rory Truex—“because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future.”
Resisting this requires vigilance: staying informed, speaking the truth, and refusing to accept falsehoods as reality. The more we engage with current events and challenge deception, the harder it becomes for authoritarianism to take hold.
We should take every attack on both formal institutions like courts and the US Constitution and on informal institutions like practices of transparent, public-minded governance, extremely seriously. Putin and leaders of other countries that have undergone democratic backsliding like Viktor Orban in Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey have set down a troubling map of various paths towards authoritarian consolidation of power.
Dr. Noah Buckley is an Assistant Professor in political science at Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Buckley’s research is authoritarian politics, public opinion, and the politics of Russia and postcommunist countries. His research has been published in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Europe-Asia Studies, and elsewhere.
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