Constitution and Democracy During the Donald Trump Era

Abstract

The aim of the panel is to analyze the state of American democracy and the character of U.S. constitutionalism during the ‘Donald Trump Era’. This period spans from 2015-2025 – from Trump’s announcement as presidential candidate in 2015 to the inauguration of the second Trump presidency and its first year. The point of departure is that the U.S., similarly to many European states, faces profound challenges to its democracy, the rule of law, and division of powers among branches and levels of government. Indeed, numerous scholars have diagnosed major threats to governance and even democracy itself (see e.g. Kaufman et al. 2025; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2025; Grumbach 2022). Of course, the current state of the union builds upon critical antecedents and longer-evolving political developments. Nevertheless, these challenges have clearly come to the fore through multiple political, legal and social processes since Donald Trump entered the political arena in 2015. Recent transformations appear to be related in many ways with Trump – i.e., whether instigated, reinforced or rather ‘merely’ coinciding with his candidacy, tenure and politics. Accordingly, the manifold changes have already triggered various social science inquiries into the ‘Donald Trump Era,’ whether with regard to populism, polarization, or constitutionalization of politics to name a few (see e.g. Laidler et.al. 2025; Goldstein and Drybread 2022; Mcintosh et.al. 2020; Bartels 2018). They also involve politics and political developments of disruption, but also the potential challenges to a variety of political norms, established rules, and democratic values (see e.g. Simon and Sonnicksen 2024). Therefore, it is necessary to determine the factors shaping the character of democratic processes in the U.S., and the outcomes derived from how the Constitution has been interpreted by the President, and by other institutions. Accordingly, the panel aims to assess various political and legal issues unfolding in the period conceived as a kind of enduring critical juncture between 2015 and 2025. This can only be done from various analytical and conceptual perspectives, and in consideration of a complex, multidimensional context or setting. This includes the dimensions of temporality, among division of powers in the polity, as well as different ‘regimes’ such as the legal system, rules and frameworks. We want to focus mainly on the legal and constitutional issues which occurred between 2015-2025, and their impact on democratic processes. Therefore, the analyses will focus on an interdisciplinary perspective towards selected issues referring to presidential powers, the electoral process, women’s rights, and – more generally – the U.S. Supreme Court’s adjudication and contemporary meaning of the Constitution. Together, this provides for a research perspective that enables to understand more broadly the processes which affect the state of rule of law and democracy in the contemporary United States, and – in broader sense – the whole democratic world.

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