Democratic Transitions in Next Year's Issue of The Reconstruction Papers

One essay that I wanted more than anything in The Reconstruction Papers this year, and did not get, was something written by a scholar of post-authoritarian democratic transitions.

Americans tend to be pretty insular. We've had that luxury, at first because oceans separated us from the great military powers, and then because we were one ourselves, and finally because we were the great power. Other places? That's just where we go to meddle, not to learn.

We have that special kind of provincialism that is the luxury of the wealthy and powerful.

Well, we can no longer afford that luxury. Authoritarian consolidation has come home. The lessons that political scientists and historians have learned through successive waves of democratic decline and renewal are urgently needed for meeting our moment. Even if we get the largest possible pro-democracy trifecta imaginable in 2029, we cannot afford to approach the task in front of us blind.

The work has been done. Indeed, it has been done to no small degree in America's world-class universities. Part of the basic idea of The Reconstruction Papers is that America has already spent decades developing the talent we need to capably confront the current crisis. We simply need to gather them and get them working on the matter directly.

We did not succeed in the first issue. Indeed, the attempt drew some rather unexpected and even hilarious results.

But now that we have more time—we intend to get the second issue in people's hands by July 4, 2027—more scholars are available than when we were conducting outreach after February to turn something around by May.

So I am very pleased to announce that Dr. Carolyn E. Holmes, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will be taking on this topic for us in next year's issue.

Dr. Holmes has written about post-authoritarian transitions through the lens of nation-building. That word has a lot of connotations (and some pejorative ones from the bad old War on Terror days) but you can think of it like this:

Our problem right now is not simply that we have an Electoral College, an undemocratic Senate design, a Voting Rights Act that is dead letter. Our problem, at its core, is that something has gone very wrong with our society itself. MAGA itself is a nebulous, formless thing, made up of people and not institutions. Yes, there is the media ecosystem and the conservative legal movement and all of it. But none of those things was pro-coup before Trump lose the 2020 election.

Trump has taken our country terrifying far down the path of personalism and that is not a bell that will simply be unrung. Just as Trump and the whole MAGA ecosystem have transformed our society, we must seek to transform our society as well. Not to change it back to what it was—it is a central pillar of the entire project of The Reconstruction Papers that going back is neither possible nor desirable. But we must transform it into a truly open society. We must transform it into a society capable of sustaining liberal democracy, with pluralism, nonviolent conflict, free and fair elections—all of it.

That is no small task. It's not as simple as throwing all the bastards in jail, though we should do that. It's not as simple as replacing the current Supreme Court majority, though we should do that too.

There is no silver bullet for what we need to accomplish. But Dr. Holmes has the background to say what can be said, to offer what guidance can be offered, on such an indeterminate and uncertain topic.

If you have an US address, you can pre-order the issue with her essay right now for $60. You will also receive a copy of this year's issue.

International readers can find their options here.