[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

DESIGNING DEMOCRACY – CONSTITUTIONAL RESILIENCE IN AUTHORITARIAN
TIMES  
[[link removed]]


 

Samira Allioui
October 6, 2025
LSE Review of Books
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Taking a comparative approach based on global case studies, this is
an incisive and important contribution to the understanding of
democracy’s evolving institutional challenges, writes Samira
Allioui. _

,

 

_The Entrenchment of Democracy
The Comparative Constitutional Design of Elections, Parties and
Voting_
Tom Ginsburg, Aziz Z. Huq, and Tarun Khaitan, eds.
Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781009447713

The authoritarian turn 

Those of us who are citizens of a democracy like to believe we have a
say over what the government does and that our preferences, or those
of the majority, translate into policies. However, authoritarian
actors have grown bolder in recent years and major democracies have
turned inward, contributing to a decline in global freedom
[[link removed]].
Oppressive and often violent authoritarian forces have successfully
tipped the international order in their favour
[[link removed]]
in many countries, exploiting both the advantages of non-democratic
systems and the weaknesses in ailing democracies. The result is a new
global status quo in which acts of repression go unpunished and
democracy’s advocates are increasingly isolated
[[link removed]]. 

The challenge for defenders of democracy is to adopt measures that
help to promote electoral integrity, without overplaying the necessity
of such measures or the ‘broken’ nature of the current electoral
system.

How can we make sense of these developments and the legal institutions
that underpin our democracies? _The Entrenchment of Democracy_ edited
by Tom Ginsburg, Aziz Z. Huq and Tarun Khaitan brings together_
_political scientists and legal scholars to dissect constitutional law
and the meta-rules that structure democratic politics. Other relevant
scholarly works have focused on the constitutional design of elections
[[link removed]], parties
[[link removed]]
and voting
[[link removed]].
This new volume argues that certain choices must be entrenched in a
constitution to enable democratic politics, but questions to what
extent and with what level of detail. The “entrenching” framework
suggests that constitutions should be very comprehensive in setting
out the rules of political competition. 

Political tyranny and party politics 

The book is divided into three parts, exploring the crisis surrounding
the concept of democracy, constitutionalisation, and specific
institutions. Following the editors’ introduction, Samuel
Issacharoff and Richard H. Pildes explore how persistent minoritarian
capture threatens democratic legitimacy
[[link removed]].
The threat of the tyranny of the minority
[[link removed]]
over the majority now looms as a central challenge that democratic
thought, policy, and doctrine must confront. The authors also address
political polarisation
[[link removed]],
one of the most pressing challenges facing contemporary democracies
and one often associated with a broader epistemic crisis. 

In chapter three, Rosalind Dixon and David Landau focus on
“Constitutions and Abusive Electoral Regulation”. According to
them, “aspects of the democratic minimum core should receive
heightened protection under a ‘tiered’ model of constitutional
amendment and design” (153). The challenge for defenders of
democracy is to adopt measures that help to promote electoral
integrity
[[link removed]],
without overplaying the necessity of such measures or the “broken”
nature of the current electoral system. 

In chapter four, “Political Parties in Constitutional Theory”,
Tarunabh Khaitan examines the functions of a political party in a
healthy democracy that can aid in the diagnosis of party ills and
unhealthy party systems
[[link removed]]. To
help parties perform their brokering function effectively, Khaitan
prescribes three actions for constitutions: they should seek to
protect party autonomy and closely align their rights and duties with
their hybrid public-private nature; optimise the number of parties so
that there are enough to represent every type of voter, without making
voter information costs unaffordable; and ensure the separation of
parties and the state
[[link removed]] so
that no single party can gain a hold on state institutions and
offices. 

It is essential to consider constitutional design from the perspective
of electoral losers, rather than just winners, and more specifically,
to promote equitable participation of the opposition in governance

Tom Ginsburg and Mila Versteeg’s contribution (chapter five) shows
how a constitutionalising democracy can be either too constricting, or
subject to manipulation, depending on context, and this can change
over time. Taking the example of Kenya
[[link removed]],
the authors show the ability of the courts to rely on constitutional
principles. However, the case of The Philippines
[[link removed]]
proves that constitutionalisation is not always a sufficient remedy to
block authoritarian power (116). In this regard, the case of Taiwan
[///C:/Users/samir/Downloads/How%20Do%20You%20Solve%20A%20Problem%20Like%20Taiwan%20(How%20Do%20You%20Catch%20A%20Cloud%20And%20Pin%20It%20Down)%20by%20Wong%20S%20Tan%20v2.pdf?utm_source=xxxxxx&utm_medium=email]
is also alarming since the nation is “democratic consolidation
trap” whereby the very mechanisms that enabled democratic transition
now prevent necessary evolution. 

Adem Kassie Abebe delves into the issue of tackling winner-takes-all
Politics in Africa. He argues that, in combating democratic
backsliding, it is essential to consider constitutional design from
the perspective of electoral losers, rather than just winners, and
more specifically, to promote equitable participation of the
opposition in governance. A balance must be struck to ensure that the
desire to counter the tyranny of the political majority
[[link removed]]. 

Threats to democratic governance 

According to Tom Gerald Daly and Brian Christopher Jones, political
parties are central to democracy but orphans of constitutional
thought. The authors highlight the main threats that political parties
pose to the sustainability of representative liberal democratic
governance around the world. They emphasise the urgent need to pay
greater attention to the often-ambiguous ways in which parties
threaten democratic governance today. To answer the question of
knowing whether we can just trust courts to “make the right call”,
Daly and Jones focus on the concepts of non-judicial options, emerging
international mechanisms, incentivising opposition rights, and
stronger controls on electoral manipulation (150). According to them,
to frame the challenges facing democratic rule worldwide as an
executive, or even leadership, problem, is to miss the deep structural
role that parties play in processes of democratic deterioration and
decay
[[link removed]]. 

Yasmin Dawood dissects what is the value of a constitutionalised right
to vote [[link removed]] (155), an
issue made more urgent recent struggles over voting and voting rules
in the US
[[link removed]]
where he complexity of the rules comprising the right to vote is also
evident. The author also provides an overview of voting rights in
Canada, illustrating the multidimensional nature of the right to vote
(158). Since the right to vote is both multidimensional and
institutional, its sub-constitutional components influence the reality
of voting far more than the mere fact that it is constitutionalised.
Therefore, Dawood argues that while a constitutional right to vote can
help strengthen the right to vote in practice, it alone does not
guarantee its usefulness. These rights can, paradoxically, undermine
democracy by providing democratic cover to autocrats in competitive
authoritarian regimes while simultaneously undermining constitutional
guarantees. That said they can still exert beneficial constraints on
elected autocrats
[[link removed]]
(190). 

Deeply researched works like this are more important now than ever as
the hope of living in a state that fulfils the promises of its
founding democratic texts remains elusive for so many of us.

In a later chapter_ _Silvia Suetu examines, through a selective range
of case studies, the complex interplay between eternity clauses
[[link removed]]
and electoral democracy. Eternity clauses can be defined as
constitutional provisions or principles that are immune from
amendment. Therefore, these clauses function as barriers or “stop
lines” to constitutional amendment. Any amendment violating those
clauses would be unconstitutional and, as such, would be invalid.
Through the examples of Germany, Czechia, Israel and Turkey, she
demonstrates that courts will not always strike the right balance
between protecting and unduly narrowing democratic commitments. In
some cases, they may even unintentionally undermine multi-partyism
itself or influence electoral outcomes
[[link removed]].
In Europe generally multi-party systems  continue to prevail
[[link removed]]. 

Constantly evolving democracies 

The volume’s authors meticulously analyse the complexity of the
interaction between third-party decision-makers responsible for
delineating constituencies, administering the vote, and resolving
conflicts, as well as a set of rights that express values ​​and
condition mobilisation. The very complexity of the interaction of all
these elements makes it difficult to draw solid predictive conclusions
about the effects of any one institutional feature in isolation.
Uncertainty reigns more than ever in terms of democracy. Each chapter
reminds us that we must pay attention to deep structures, but also to
institutional innovations that respond to the constantly evolving
challenges of democratic societies. Recent experience and theory can
help us understand, and perhaps attempt to address, these
challenges. 

Overall, the book is an incisive and comprehensive exploration of
legal and political phenomena underpinning democratic systems around
the world where politics are increasingly divisive. Deeply researched
works like this are more important now than ever as the hope of living
in a state that fulfils the promises of its founding democratic texts
remains elusive for so many of us.

_NOTE:__ This review gives the views of the author and not the
position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of
Economics and Political Science._

 

Currently based in Norway, Samira Allioui is a trial attorney and
legal researcher. Her research interests focus on procedural rules of
international courts and tribunals, international private and
procedural law as well as international civil procedure. She began her
career in legal academia as a Law Teaching Fellow with the University
of Strasbourg.

* democracy
[[link removed]]
* Authoritarianism
[[link removed]]
* elections
[[link removed]]
* electoral integrity
[[link removed]]
* political parties
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]