Democracy-Reinforcing Hardball: Can Breaking Democratic Norms Preserve Democratic Values?

The threat of democratic backsliding has prompted growing interest in “hardball,” the pursuit of legal and constitutional changes with the intended purpose of biasing outcomes in favor of one party over others. Such actions can be allowed under existing constitutional and legal rules, but are in tension with norms that these rules ought to be insulated from the contest for power. This paper provides a new definition of what I call democracy-reinforcing hardball, and a framework for thinking about when it might be successful. I show how the averting-backsliding literature’s injunction against hardball limits the feasibility of its suggested reforms. I categorize various hardball scenarios, highlighting conditions under which it might be democracy-reinforcing, and describe three cases in terms of this concept. I conclude by arguing that future research should study the conditions under which hardball might help stabilize a democratic political order over the long-term.