Can Federalism Protect Subnational Liberal Democracy from Central Authoritarianism?

Abstract

The last two decades have seen a rapid erosion of liberal democracy around the globe, including in the United States, to the point where many informed observers worry that liberal democracy in the United States is now in serious jeopardy. Nevertheless, a number of leading comparativists have speculated recently that federalism may protect liberal democracy at the subnational level, or at least significantly prolong its viability, when the central government turns authoritarian. The single most pressing question now facing American federalism is whether this speculation is correct: Can American states that retain a commitment to liberal democracy continue to live by those ideals if a second Trump presidency, or some similar event, precipitates a full-blown regime change to populist authoritarianism at the national level?

This paper accordingly poses two questions. First, is uniform liberal democracy, both centrally and among subnational units, a condition of sustainable federalism? Second, does federalism provide an advantage in the liminal stages of regime transition by either preventing or impeding the consolidation of central authoritarianism? Consideration of both federal theory and the available empirical evidence suggests that the most probable answer to both questions is negative: federalism appears to provide no notable protection against democratic backsliding either nationally or subnationally.

Keywords: Federalism, Democratic backsliding, Authoritarianism, Subnational, Federal failure, Illiberalism, Liberalism