How Democracies Die

by Steven Levitsky

President Obama also responded with norm breaking—in the form of unilateral executive actions. In October 2011, the president presented what would become his mantra for achieving policy goals: “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job,” he told an audience in Nevada. “Whenever they won’t act, I will.” Obama began to use executive authority in a way he might not have expected to before coming into office. In 2010, in the face of Congress’s failure to pass a new energy bill, he issued an “executive memorandum” instructing government agencies to raise fuel efficiency standards for all cars. In 2012, in response to Congress’s inability to pass immigration reform, he announced an executive action to cease deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the United States before the age of sixteen and were either in school or were high school graduates or military veterans. In 2015, President Obama responded to Congress’s refusal to pass legislation to combat climate change by issuing an executive order to all federal agencies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use more renewable energy. Unable to get Senate consent for a nuclear treaty with Iran, the Obama administration negotiated an “executive agreement,” which, because it was not formally a treaty, did not require Senate approval. The president’s actions were not out of constitutional bounds, but by acting unilaterally to achieve goals that had been blocked by Congress, President Obama violated...