In their recent New York Times essay, Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt argue that the United States has crossed over into a form of competitive authoritarianism, a system that may have elections but in which dissent is costly and the playing field is tilted against the opposition. Civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill has long sounded the alarm about the “grave crisis of democracy” in the United States, due to the influence of racism and the erosion of the rule of law. They all cite the importance of civic engagement and “getting off the sidelines” in confronting authoritarianism. But how have people in this country and globally turned around autocratic systems? Often, it’s been through broad democratic fronts and collective mass action.
Iconic pro-democracy movements include the U.S. civil rights movement, the Polish Solidarity movement, the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and the “No” campaign that ousted Augusto Pinochet in Chile. More recent examples are the successful civic uprisings against autocratic leaders in Brazil (where the slide to autocracy under President Jair Bolsonaro was stopped), South Korea (where an autocratic President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and removed from power), and Serbia (where a corrupt Prime Minister Milos Vucevic was removed, though the democratic turn-around remains incomplete). All featured these key elements:
- Sustained mass participation by diverse groups and sectors in society.
- Tactical innovation including the use of organized noncooperation, like boycotts and strikes, that directly remove a regime’s sources of power.
- Defections within key pillars upholding authoritarian regimes like businesses, religious organizations, unions, professional associations, bureaucracies, and security forces.
- Resilience and discipline in the face of rising repression.
My research with political scientist Erica Chenoweth and multiple other studies have found that the strongest bulwarks against authoritarianism are broad-based democratic fronts that bring people together across race, class, creed, sector, and geography to engage in sustained nonviolent mass action. According to recent research by political scientists Jonathan Pinckney and Claire Trilling, the probability of stopping democratic backsliding is about 7.5 percent when populations rely exclusively on institutional channels like elections, litigations, and legislative action, without a civil resistance movement that uses extra-institutional tactics like protests, boycotts, and strikes; with a civil resistance movement, the chances are 51.7 percent.
Civil resistance “works” by raising the costs of tyranny and systematically removing the sources of power for an autocrat and his enablers. All authoritarian regimes rely on support from key institutions in society, including political parties, businesses, unions, religious organizations, bureaucracies, courts, media outlets, and security forces. When members of these pillars stop cooperating with the regime – workers deny their labor and skills, businesses withhold financial contributions, bureaucrats do things slowly or ineffectively, faith organizations stop providing moral approval, soldiers defy orders to use violence against protestors – it becomes difficult or impossible for autocrats to stay in power.
That explains why organized noncooperation by key pillars is so key to the success of pro-democracy movements. In South Korea last year, mass action by key sectors played a critical role in stopping an attempted coup. Actions included the Confederation of Trade Unions, which threatened an indefinite general strike unless President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted martial law, then launched sector-specific, time-bound strikes and walk-outs by cafeteria workers and others.
Divide-and-Rule vs. Collective Action
Autocrats and their enablers thrive on divide and rule, using attacks on individuals and groups — be they immigrants, law firms, or businesses — to spread fear and discourage opposition from others. Overcoming these barriers to collective action can be difficult, particularly when individuals and their families face the possibility of lost livelihoods, social ostracism, and death threats for refusing to go along.
Yet, we know that collective action is the best way for groups to protect themselves, avoid becoming cogs in an evil machine, and go on offense against autocrats. There is safety in numbers. When people feel supported, when they know that others have their backs, they are more likely to engage in courageous acts. Solidarity incentivizes courage – and it creates the will and opportunity to mobilize a lot more people and power for the political fight against autocracy.
Sustaining solidarity requires organization. During the civil rights movement, the greatest pro-democracy movement in U.S. history, organizations like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee brought together churches, unions, and students to engage in collective action “for jobs and freedom.” Organized noncooperation campaigns like the bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins, and sanitation worker strikes, supported by carpools, strike funds, and mutual aid, and combined with strategic litigation by groups like the NAACP, dismantled Jim Crow and paved the way for multi-racial democracy.
Global Pushback on Autocracy
In three recent countries where societies reversed democratic backsliding to at least a significant degree – Poland (following nearly a decade of Law and Justice Party rule, though another president from that party was just elected who is likely to be a significant barrier), Brazil (under the Bolsonaro administration), and Zambia (in the late-1990s-early 2000s) — collective action across sectors and ideologies was key. In Brazil, in response to the far-right then-president Bolsonaro’s constitutional violations, more than 100 businesses, unions, universities, and civil society organizations signed a letter, “In Defense of Democracy and Justice,” which was published in the main national newspapers. Evangelical and Catholic faith leaders jointly denounced Bolsonaro’s totalitarian ways and called for his impeachment. The broad front helped defeat Bolsonaro electorally in 2022, and after he attempted to overturn the election results through a coup in January 2023, powerful organizations like the Conference of Bishops denounced the “criminal attacks on the democratic rule of law” and Bolsonaro was removed from power.
In Poland, lawyers and judges took to the streets alongside youth and women’s movements to challenge the Law and Justice party’s (PiS) attacks on the judiciary, while the Episcopal Conference refused to celebrate mass at a rally for Poland’s Independence Day, citing the regime’s “un-Christian nationalism.” The opposition Civic Coalition that defeated PiS in the 2023 elections, which included parties that spanned left, right, and center, emphasized the effects of democratic decline on ordinary Poles, while using the language of hope and civic patriotism to mobilize people. The recent presidential election results show that progress is not always linear, and the struggle must continue. Now that the Trump administration and the FBI have started arresting U.S. judges, it may be time for America’s own legal professionals to consider nontraditional tactics like those used by Polish judges and lawyers (taking to the streets with other civic actors, refusing regime orders) and Pakistani judges (walking out of courthouses and marching in black robes) in their pro-democracy struggles.
In Zambia, when President Frederick Chiluba attempted to manipulate the country’s Constitution to run for a third presidential term in 2001, the three national church bodies for Catholics, Protestants, and evangelicals formed an alliance with the nation’s lawyers (grouped in the Law Association of Zambia) to campaign against the constitutional changes. Their collective action was ultimately successful and Chiluba was forced to abandon his plans.
In the United States, with MAGA leaders – and Trump himself — already suggesting a possible third term for him, it will be essential for faith organizations (Catholic bishops, evangelical associations, protestant denominations, Jewish, Muslim, and interfaith organizations) to loudly and defiantly say “no.” The organization where I work, the Horizons Project, and the anti-authoritarianism group Protect Democracy have launched a “Faithful Fight” toolkit series to offer ways for faith communities to confront authoritarianism.
Collective Action Gaining Strength in the U.S.
During the first Trump administration, cross-sector collective action was key to stopping the worst abuses of power. The “Muslim Ban” was blocked by a powerful coalition of lawyers, immigration groups, civil liberties organizations, and faith groups who collectively and stubbornly refused to go along with it, including through a visceral rush on the airports to welcome and aid arriving refugees. Before the 2020 election, the AFL-CIO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the National African American Clergy Network joined forces to call for free and fair elections and a peaceful transfer of power.
Under Trump 2.0, after initial capitulations by tech companies including Meta, media outlets such as ABC News, universities like Columbia, and law firms including Paul Weiss, the tide is starting to shift. More than 500 law firms filed an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s executive order that targeted the firm, which was struck down in court, a decision followed by two more similar judicial victories for the rule of law. Brave lawyers like Rachel Cohen, who left her firm to protest its refusal to stand up to Trump, created a ripple effect, and firms that capitulated to Trump’s demands have lost major clients. Courage is contagious.
More than two dozen religious groups, including the Mennonite Church, the Episcopal Church, the Union for Reform Judaism, and the Unitarian Universalist Association sued the federal government in response to the Trump administration’s policy making it easier for immigration officials to make arrests at houses of worship. The faith coalition insisted that the change to the “sensitive locations” policy infringes on their religious freedom. Hundreds of some of the most powerful private philanthropies, from across the political and ideological spectrum, have recently banded together to preempt possible administration attacks on their tax-exempt status, preparing legal and other strategies.
The Rutgers University Senate called on the school’s president to formally propose and help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) among all members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance. “Under this compact, all participating institutions shall commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund. This fund shall be used to provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement.” While faculty senates at several Big Ten universities have passed non-binding resolutions endorsing the MADC, university administrations have so far not formally adopted the proposal.
Hundreds of Harvard University professors, including members of the American Association of University Professors, which earlier issued a statement “Against Anticipatory Obedience,” called on university leadership to resist demands by the Trump administration to change its protest and hiring policies and cooperate with federal immigration officials. After the administration cut $2 billion in federal grants to the university, Harvard fought back and sued the Trump administration at each tightening of the screw. Sixty current and former university presidents co-signed an editorial in Fortune offering support for Harvard’s acts of defiance.
Importantly, unions, which are often the first targets of authoritarian regimes, are stepping up their collective action. The AFL-CIO has launched the “Department of People Who Work for a Living” to report on DOGE’s cuts and what ordinary people can do to fight back. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers in 37 federal agencies, sued the Trump administration over an executive order that declared the unions hostile to his agenda and could block collective bargaining rights. The Chicago Teachers Union reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with Chicago Public Schools that reaffirms sanctuary school protections, protects the ability to teach Black history, gives veteran teachers a raise, and offers further protections. The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) is building solidarity across the federal sector of the labor movement, including through trainings and direct actions.
While these sector-specific actions are important, collective action across different sectors packs an even bigger punch. Mass demonstrations, like the April 5 Hands Off protests, the May Day rallies on May 1, the Unite For Veterans rally on June 6, the June 10 Pentecost Witness for a Moral Budget action, and the June 14 No Kings nationwide protest to coincide with Trump’s planned military parade that day, are important ways to demonstrate unity, solidarity, and mass defiance. Yet, it takes more muscular forms of protest and noncooperation, like walkouts, labor strikes, and economic boycotts, to stop autocrats in their tracks. Economic noncooperation campaigns like the Tesla Takedown, which has contributed to a plummeting of Tesla stock prices (and dampened Musk’s political ambitions), the Target boycott over its anti-DEI policies, which includes a “buycott” of Black-owned businesses and banks, and a pressure campaign targeting Avelo airlines, which runs deportation flights for ICE and has lost state subsidies as a result of civic action, are examples of what is possible.
Supporting and coordinating mass action, including organized noncooperation across different sectors and pillars, takes a commitment to big-tent organizing. That is something the Horizons Project is committed to building with other critical organizations from the faith, veterans, union, professional associations, and business pillars, and with civic groups that span the political and ideological spectrum. With a focus on deep relationship-building, shared analysis, training, and collective action at the state and national level, this broad-front effort is designed to move pillars away from supporting authoritarianism and towards a constitutional democracy grounded in freedom and justice for all.
Conclusion
The United States is at a critical turning point and Americans are stronger than they often think. Protests and collective actions across the country are intensifying as the circle of those harmed by this regime expands. While it is impossible to predict triggers for mass action (intensified repression, defying court orders, cuts to social security, attempts to subvert elections), investing in the relational infrastructure that will underpin any future mobilization and organized noncooperation is critical. That includes working with people with whom we mostly agree, but also with those with whom we may vehemently disagree on many things but can find common cause in advancing a society free from government tyranny.
Also critical is grounding this work in an affirmative vision of the kind of inclusive democracy that prioritizes human dignity and human flourishing, and where community care is emphasized and equality under the law is guaranteed. Especially in bleak political times, bold projects are necessary that can bring together unlikely allies such as those seeking to reduce money in politics, restore dignity in labor, or replace solutions depending on incarceration with reparative justice. The journey from individual angst to collective action, from siloed work to big-tent formations, from overreliance on defensive resistance to building a more desirable future grounded in joy and shared humanity takes time, vision, and commitment. It is also the pathway to victory.
