By now, we know the pattern: A constitutional democracy, flawed but in reasonably good standing, is hit by a transformative election.
May
2025
Research for this Essay was conducted while the author was Visiting Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization, Harvard Law School, Spring 2017. She would like to thank the members of the Group on Autocratic Legalism (GOAL) at Harvard Law School, particularly Cem Tecimer, Isabel Roby, and Jakub Jozwiak for their excellent research assistance on Turkey, Venezuela, and Poland, respectively, as well as Mark Tushnet, Vicki Jackson, Scott Brewer, Oren Tamir, and others who attended these sessions for providing both a sounding board and new cases to consider. For valuable research assistance on Hungary, she would also like to thank Panna Balla of Harvard Law School and Cassie Emmons and Miklós Bánkuti, currently and formerly of Princeton. She also appreciates the daily counsel of Jan-Werner Müller, Dan Kelemen, Laurent Pech, Dimitry Kochenov, Tomasz Koncewicz, and Gábor Halmai for constant exchanges on these topics in real time. And she thanks participants in the symposium organized by Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Huq on The Limits of Constitutionalism, as well as the editors of The University of Chicago Law Review for insightful suggestions.
By now, we know the pattern: A constitutional democracy, flawed but in reasonably good standing, is hit by a transformative election.