Why American constitutional democracy is likely to collapse

Presidential political systems are not designed to withstand constitutional hardball

Democracies come in two basic flavors: parliamentary and presidential. Presidential systems rely on an independent legislature and judiciary to check executive power. We can thank the Enlightenment thinkers who inspired Madison and others for their enormous faith in the separation of powers. Also, the founders were not inclined to copy anything British.

Parliamentary systems aren’t like this. The legislature selects and replaces the prime minister based on shifting electoral coalitions. They depend less on checks and balances because they are not creatures of the Enlightenment. Parliaments evolved in medieval Europe, particularly in England. Starting with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the monarchy gradually ceded power to an elected parliament. Over time, England established a constitutional monarchy in which the majority party or coalition in parliament chose a prime minister. A PM typically has no fixed term and remains accountable to parliament. When parliament loses confidence in the prime minister, they dissolve the government and trigger new elections. Policymaking is more streamlined because parliamentary systems fuse the executive and legislature. This ensures that a winning coalition can actually govern.

Presidents wield more centralized power than prime ministers, who have power distributed more widely across the cabinet and parliament. Presidents are more likely to be assassinated because they are both the ceremonial head-of-state and the executive in charge of government. Prime ministers are less visible and more fungible. There is no equivalent of a Vice President in parliamentary systems because it is relatively easy for a parliament to replace a prime minister.

Neither system is foolproof. Both depend on political norms, broad institutions, and a civic culture that forms over many generations. However, even if the system does not decide outcomes, it creates powerful incentives. History suggests that presidential systems are more brittle and likely to collapse into authoritarian rule.¹

The aftermath of World War II provided an interesting test of American convictions. US occupation authorities worked with local leaders of Germany, Japan, Italy, and Austria to write new constitutions for the defeated powers. We did not push these countries to adopt our basic government framework. In part, this was because our paramount concern was preventing the reemergence of a dictator (much as preventing the reemergence of a monarch had shaped the preferences of our founders). Each of the occupied countries ended up with a parliamentary system.

Why presidential systems are more brittle

Research suggests that since World War II, presidential systems have been less stable and less democratic. Juan Linz and others have shown that presidential systems are more prone to coups and authoritarianism. This is especially true in newer democracies or countries with deep social divisions. A 2014 study suggests that between 1946 and 2010, parliamentary systems in new democracies were three times more likely to survive than presidential ones. African and Latin American countries with presidential systems experienced more frequent democratic breakdowns. Authoritarian leaders were more likely to exploit presidential powers to undermine democratic institutions. By contrast, parliamentary systems have mechanisms like no-confidence votes for removing leaders without dismantling the entire system.

Researchers articulate several specific reasons for these differences.

• Concentrated power. Presidential systems concentrate significant power on a single individual. This increases the risk of authoritarianism if institutional checks and balances are weak. Presidents like Hugo Chávez used executive authority to dismantle a vibrant and stable Venezuelan democracy. Parliamentary systems distribute power across multiple actors, reducing the likelihood of authoritarian consolidation.

• Dual legitimacy. In presidential systems, the president and the legislature have independent mandates from the electorate. This can lead to deadlocks between the executive and the legislature, undermining effective governance and creating opportunities for authoritarian leaders. Parliamentary systems avoid this issue because the leader of the executive branch depends on the legislature to remain in power.

• Winner-take-all elections. Presidential systems typically rely on winner-take-all elections. This creates a zero-sum contest for political power and inhibits the formation of new political parties. This exacerbates polarization and makes coalition-building more difficult. In contrast, parliamentary systems foster compromise because they encourage the formation of new parties, coalitions, and power-sharing arrangements.

• Fixed terms. Presidents serve fixed terms and are typically difficult to remove without a crisis or impeachment. This prolongs the rule of ineffective or unpopular leaders. Through no-confidence votes, parliamentary systems enable leadership changes without undermining the democratic framework.

It is important not to overstate these incentives. Parliamentary systems also break down. They produce fewer authoritarian rulers, but the parliament in Weimar Germany gave us Hitler and Hungary’s has given us Orban. Since World War II, Italy and Israel have had highly fragmented parliamentary systems that have produced unstable governments. Parliaments also gave us clowns like Boris Johnson and Sylvio Berlusconi.

The United States is the great exception of presidential democracies. Until recently, we maintained a presidential system without regime collapse or authoritarianism. We had evolved a political culture rooted in constitutionalism and respect for democratic norms. We had not suffered from enduring class divisions or mass disrespect for democratic governance that helped bring down other presidential systems.²

These conditions have changed profoundly. In recent years, the political culture, institutional checks and balances, and socioeconomics that once bound our democracy have all but disintegrated. The legislative branch rarely constrains an executive from its own party. The balance of power has become a balance of parties. We may muddle through once again, but it will not be because the American constitutional order is designed to withstand a sustained Trumpian assault.

Few presidential democracies survive a president determined to ignore the Constitution. In three weeks, Trump has attempted to revoke birthright citizenship, freeze federal spending, and dissolve agencies in defiance of Congress. He fired government employees who were subject to civil service protections. He pardoned violent protestors and fired their prosecutors for partisan reasons. He has threatened to prosecute or deport people based on their political views.

The courts have limited capacity to check executive power

Presidential systems cannot count on the judiciary as a sustained bulwark against massive executive overreach for several reasons.

• Courts are politicized. Increasingly, presidents use partisan appointments to shape courts. Democrats appointed three of the nine Supreme Court justices, half of the US Courts of Appeals judges, and 60% of federal judges.³ The party that appoints a judge strongly predicts his or her judicial ruling in controversial cases. (This is much less true in technical cases, and scholars find evidence that judicial ideologies tend to drift over time.)

• Courts are reactive. Courts can only address illegal actions after they occur. A court requires a plaintiff who has suffered an injury to file a lawsuit. As a result, a determined president can do considerable damage before any legal intervention is possible.

• Courts have limited enforcement powers. They can’t do much when a president is determined to defy a decision, comply only narrowly, or delay compliance. When states defied the desegregation mandate in Brown v. Board of Education, Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne to forcibly integrate Arkansas schools. But if Ike had defied the court, nobody could have ordered him to enforce Brown. The President directs the Attorney General who runs the US Marshals Service, which enforces judicial decisions.

Donald Trump is severely testing our judiciary. A month ago, nobody expected him to deputize his largest donor, an unaccountable mega-billionaire, to oversee the illegal dissolution of federal agencies. Project 2025 advocated mass firing civil servants, but nobody foresaw Elon Musk's attempt to seize control of Treasury Department payment systems. At this point, few Republican legislators are willing to assert their legislative prerogatives because they risk a vengeful primary challenge financed by Musk.

To their enormous credit, the courts have responded quickly to Trump’s initial onslaught of Executive Orders. They froze orders ending birthright citizenship, halting all spending, and transferring transgender female prisoners to male-only prisons. They froze DOGE access to the Treasury payments system, rescinded the proposed buyout of federal workers, and froze the destruction of USAID. An excellent two weeks’ work.

For now, Trump has mostly honored court rulings. But these are early skirmishes in a battle between the executive and the judiciary that will likely persist and intensify for the next four years—or longer if J.D. Vance has his way. As in Hungary and Poland, we should expect the judiciary to become a target of presidential wrath once the Senate confirms his preposterous FBI and National Intelligence appointees. Can the courts hold out for four years with the Justice Department and the FBI in the hands of vengeful partisans? I doubt it.

Hope is not a strategy

Americans are deeply invested in our political identity, which includes faith in our constitutional system. Most of us are not eager to imagine that it might contain fundamental flaws. A constitutional convention is a terrifying prospect. But over the last 25 years, ideological polarization has fueled chronic paralysis and crisis. Government shutdowns, impeachments, debt ceiling standoffs, and aggressive constitutional brinkmanship have become normal. Voter dissatisfaction has grown, confidence in American institutions has declined, and political instability has deepened. Instead of spurring reform, this discontent has driven erratic electoral shifts that intensify the perception of perpetual crisis.

Progressives have made plenty of intelligent suggestions for small-bore electoral reform. Ranked-choice voting in many places allows voters to vote for multiple candidates in order of preference. Being the voter’s second or third choice can be decisive. Open primaries let voters participate regardless of party affiliation. Nonpartisan blanket primaries in some states advance the top two vote-getters regardless of party. Multimember districts and proportional representation would allocate seats proportionally based on the share of votes each party receives. 

These reforms can reduce polarization, encourage candidates to appeal to a broader electorate and diminish the effects of gerrymandering. They can promote collaboration and ensure that legislative bodies more accurately reflect the diverse views of the electorate. They can advocate for the unlikely abandonment of the Electoral College and the direct election of the president. But none of these electoral reforms matter if our constitutional system cannot constrain or remove a tyrannical president.

Our constitutional crisis seems sure to get worse. Will we have the foresight to do for ourselves what we once did for Germany, Japan, Italy, and Austria? Can we devise a constitutional system better equipped to meet the challenges of modern times?

Coda: Tangled Up in Blue

1. Presidential systems are prevalent in Latin America, thanks to the historical influence of the US and colonial traditions of centralized governance. Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Venezuela have presidential systems — and a history of instability. Many African countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa adopted presidential systems after gaining independence in the mid-20th century. Presidential systems in Asia are limited to Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines, with most countries opting for parliamentary or hybrid systems. Europe is entirely parliamentary outside some post-Soviet states like Belarus and Turkey. A handful of states like France and Poland operate hybrid or semi-presidential systems that share power between a directly elected president and a prime minister accountable to the legislature.

2. One obvious and important enduring social division that the US pioneered is anti-Black racism, which helped unify liberal and conservative political parties for many years during the 19th and 20th centuries.

3. During his first term, Trump appointed 234 federal judges; Biden appointed 235.