Why most populist leaders fail to destroy democracy
Trump's containment and Nordic resilience reveal how democratic institutions develop immunity to populist pressure
Iain MacGregor's analysis of Imperial Japan's autarky, Trump's tariffs, and Japan's Sanseito party reveals a disturbing pattern: democracies repeatedly choosing economic nationalism despite catastrophic historical evidence. But MacGregor's focus on democratic failure obscures an equally important story - most attempts to dismantle democracy actually fail. Political scientist Kurt Weyland's comprehensive study of populist leaders reveals that only seven of 40 cases since 1980 succeeded in "asphyxiating" democracy. This raises a crucial question MacGregor doesn't address: what protects the other 33 democracies from succumbing to the destructive cycles he identifies?
Understanding democratic resistance mechanisms matters urgently because the pattern MacGregor documents - economic anxiety driving nationalist politics - shows no signs of abating. Japan's 2025 election surge by the far-right Sanseito party, Trump's comprehensive tariff programme, and similar movements across developed democracies suggest the institutional pressures are intensifying. Yet most democratic systems continue functioning despite populist challenges. The question isn't just why democracies fail, but why most don't - and what this reveals about building institutional immunity to economic nationalism.
The surprising resilience of democratic institutions
Weyland's research challenges conventional assumptions about democratic fragility under populist pressure. His analysis of Europe and the Americas since 1980 identifies clear patterns in the seven successful cases of democratic breakdown: Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador.
These leaders succeeded only when two conditions converged: institutional weakness combined with major crises they could exploit. Institutional weakness meant either easily changeable parliamentary systems (like Hungary, where Orbán's party rewrote the constitution and changed hundreds of laws) or fragmented political opposition. The crisis element included economic disasters (Peru's hyperinflation before Fujimori), windfall resources (Venezuela's oil boom under Chávez), or security emergencies (Peru's Shining Path insurgency).
Crucially, these conditions rarely align. Most populist leaders lack both institutional openings and exploitable crises, which explains why figures like Trump, Italy's Matteo Salvini, or Germany's Alternative für Deutschland have failed to dismantle democratic systems despite significant electoral success.
But Weyland's institutional focus captures only part of the resistance story. Ruth-Lovell's research in the European Journal of Political Research reveals that "more mature democracies are less prone to populist deterioration effects" - but not simply due to age. The protection comes from what she calls previously established "electoral, liberal and deliberative democratic institutions" that create multiple layers of resistance.
This institutional maturity advantage appears less about rigid preservation than adaptive capacity. Countries that successfully resist populist pressure don't simply maintain existing structures - they modify policies whilst preserving democratic foundations.
How distributed resistance contains populist pressure
The Trump presidency provides the clearest contemporary example of how democratic immune systems actually function. Despite Trump's explicit admiration for authoritarian leaders and repeated attacks on democratic norms, US institutions contained his populist challenge through what Weyland describes as "multi-faceted, determined resistance" across multiple institutional levels.
The resistance operated through constitutional design and active mobilisation. Federal courts rejected Trump's election challenges whilst state officials certified results despite enormous pressure. Congressional oversight functioned even when weakened by partisan loyalty. Civil society organisations, from voting rights groups to government transparency advocates, maintained pressure through legal challenges and public mobilisation.
Perhaps most remarkably, resistance emerged within Trump's own administration. Career bureaucrats, political appointees, and even close advisers "deliberately sabotaged his initiatives" according to documented accounts. This internal resistance prevented many authoritarian overreaches whilst preserving institutional knowledge and processes.
The 2018 midterm elections demonstrated how democratic systems can self-correct. Voter mobilisation, enhanced by civil society organising, delivered opposition control of the House of Representatives, strengthening institutional checks and balances. As Weyland notes, this represented "democratic re-equilibration" rather than inevitable decline.
This multi-institutional resistance pattern explains why single-point institutional reforms often fail to protect democracy effectively. Populist containment requires distributed defense mechanisms that operate across constitutional design, civil society mobilisation, bureaucratic resistance, and electoral competition simultaneously.
Nordic adaptation: policy flexibility with institutional preservation
Nordic countries demonstrate how successful democratic adaptation differs from the rigid institutional preservation that failed in MacGregor's historical cases. Despite facing identical global pressures - economic integration, migration flows, technological disruption - Denmark, Sweden, and Norway maintained democratic stability whilst avoiding both economic nationalism and institutional breakdown.
Their approach combined policy flexibility with institutional preservation in ways that defused populist pressure whilst strengthening democratic foundations. Denmark's Social Democratic Party adopted stricter immigration policies without abandoning pluralistic governance or human rights protections. Sweden modified welfare eligibility and taxation whilst preserving universal programme structures.
Crucially, these adaptations occurred through democratic processes with extensive civil society input, transparent parliamentary debate, and constitutional protection for minority rights. The Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index rankings demonstrate the results: Denmark ranks 10th globally in economic freedom, Iceland 11th and Finland 17th - all outperforming the US at 20th place.
This adaptive capacity appears linked to what political scientists call "institutional forbearance" - the ability to modify specific policies whilst maintaining core democratic principles. Nordic political cultures developed strong informal norms around democratic process that constrain policy changes within constitutional boundaries.
The contrast with populist approaches is instructive. Where populist leaders claim mandates to override institutional constraints in pursuit of "the people's will," Nordic systems channel policy pressure through existing democratic institutions that can adapt without abandoning pluralistic governance.
Research by Nima Sanandaji reveals that Nordic success stems from combining "free-market policies" with "social responsibility norms" developed through democratic institutions over decades. This institutional foundation enabled policy adaptation to global pressures without triggering the economic nationalism cycles MacGregor identified.
Digital-era challenges and democratic counter-mobilisation
Contemporary populist movements exploit digital platforms in ways that bypass traditional institutional gatekeepers whilst accelerating the political dynamics MacGregor describes. Sanseito's YouTube channel success - nearly 500,000 subscribers dwarfing mainstream Japanese parties' digital reach - demonstrates how digital technology enables small movements to achieve disproportionate political impact.
Digital platforms amplify emotional appeals whilst undermining institutional memory of the kind MacGregor's Hiroshima survivors represent. Complex global economic forces become simplified into emotionally satisfying narratives about foreign threats or elite conspiracies that feel more controllable than abstract market dynamics.
But digital technology also creates new democratic protection mechanisms. Rapid fact-checking, civil society coordination, and grassroots mobilisation operate at speeds that can match or exceed populist narrative spread. The question isn't whether technology helps or harms democracy, but whether democratic societies develop digital literacy and counter-mobilisation capabilities quickly enough.
Freedom House research reveals that countries with strong media independence and civil society organisations handle digital-era populist challenges more successfully. This suggests democratic resilience requires not just constitutional design but active institutional ecosystems that can respond to technological disruption.
Contemporary protection mechanisms must operate across multiple technological and institutional layers simultaneously. Legal frameworks for platform accountability, digital literacy education, civil society capacity building, and rapid response fact-checking systems all contribute to democratic immune systems adapted for digital-era challenges.
Building democratic immune systems for economic pressure
The research reveals that successful democratic resistance to economic nationalism requires specific institutional characteristics that can be developed and strengthened. Understanding these mechanisms offers practical guidance for vulnerable democracies facing the pressures MacGregor documents.
First, institutional redundancy matters more than individual institutional strength. Single-point protections - whether constitutional courts, electoral systems, or media independence - can be overwhelmed or circumvented. But distributed resistance across multiple institutional levels creates protection through what engineers call "failure tolerance" - if one system fails, others maintain democratic function.
Second, adaptive institutional capacity enables policy modification without abandoning democratic principles. Rigid institutional preservation, like Imperial Japan's resource sovereignty pursuit, often triggers the very pressures it seeks to avoid. Successful democracies modify specific policies through democratic processes whilst maintaining pluralistic governance foundations.
Third, civil society vibrancy creates positive feedback loops with economic integration success. Countries with robust independent media, active civic organisations, and strong professional associations handle globalisation pressures more effectively, which reduces the economic anxiety that fuels populist appeals.
Fourth, democratic education and institutional knowledge transfer prevent the institutional memory failures MacGregor identifies. The Hiroshima survivors' emphasis on asking "why" points toward democratic practices that maintain critical inquiry under pressure - precisely what economic anxiety tends to erode.
Finally, rapid response capabilities enable democratic systems to address populist challenges before they metastasise into institutional crises. This includes both technological responses to digital manipulation and policy responses to economic pressure that address legitimate grievances without abandoning international cooperation.
The Nordic experience suggests that democracies can successfully manage global economic integration whilst maintaining institutional integrity - but only through active adaptation that preserves democratic principles whilst modifying specific policies in response to legitimate concerns.
The institutional immunity imperative
MacGregor's analysis of recurring economic nationalism cycles provides crucial warnings about democratic vulnerability under economic pressure. But Weyland's research reveals that democratic failure isn't inevitable - most populist challenges fail because democratic institutions possess stronger immune systems than conventional wisdom suggests.
The protection mechanisms operate through institutional redundancy, adaptive capacity, civil society strength, and rapid response capabilities that can be built and strengthened through deliberate effort. Countries facing economic anxiety don't inevitably choose the destructive nationalism MacGregor documents if they develop institutional immunity to these appeals.
Understanding democratic protection mechanisms becomes essential as global economic pressures intensify. Climate change, technological disruption, demographic shifts, and geopolitical competition will likely generate the kind of economic anxiety that historically drives nationalist politics. Whether democracies succumb to these pressures or develop immunity depends on institutional choices made now.
The Hiroshima survivors MacGregor interviewed provide moral guidance, but contemporary democracies need practical institutional mechanisms that can maintain critical inquiry under pressure whilst addressing legitimate economic concerns through international cooperation rather than nationalist retreat.
Democratic immune systems aren't automatic or permanent - they require active maintenance and adaptation to new challenges. But the evidence suggests they can be built, strengthened, and sustained through institutional design that prioritises redundancy, adaptability, and civil society engagement over rigid preservation or populist simplification.
The choice isn't between accepting MacGregor's cycle of democratic failure or hoping it won't occur. The choice is building institutional immunity that enables democracies to address economic pressure through adaptation rather than abandonment of the international cooperation that created their prosperity in the first place.