In Federalist #51, James Madison reflected on the need for checks and balances in the new republican government, precisely because “government itself … [is] the greatest of all reflections on human nature.” The Founders recognized the moral corruption of man; he cannot be trusted to do what is right or good in all situations and circumstances. Thus, there is a need for institutional checks on man’s ability to effectively govern. As Madison noted, “In framing a government … you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
In The Assault on the State, political scientists Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein argue that the modern administrative state is under attack. At least since Nixon’s attempt to reorganize the federal bureaucracy, Republicans and conservatives have consistently sought to reduce the size of government. But the authors argue that today, under Trump, it has reached a dangerous level: the dismantling of the modern state for personal gain.
The authors concur that the modern administrative or bureaucratic state was established by Congress for implementing laws, accompanied by the development of rules and regulations, and oriented by procedural due process. It is made up of departments, organizations, and programs, supported by millions of personnel at all levels of government, who, by way of their knowledge, skills, and abilities, perform functions and make decisions, using discretionary authority, that lead to the implementation of effective public services. The modern bureaucratic state forms the backbone of our democratic republic. They argue, however, that three cultural factors, acting independently of each other, contribute to denigrating the core commitment of the modern state: to govern effectively. The factors include libertarianism, Christian nationalism, and the unitary executive theory.
Modern libertarianism is rooted in Ayn Rand’s “objectivism” and the Austrian economic school of thought, led by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, where the protagonist, Howard Roark, made his way through corporate America, “rejecting all forms of social conformity,” while achieving “greatness solely through personal efforts,” certified the dominance of capitalism.
Likewise, economic libertarianism, spurred by Hayek’s post-World War II The Road to Serfdom argued that the private sector could not achieve economic freedom, largely because of high taxes, burdensome regulations, and stifling bureaucratic processes—all the products of the modern administrative state. This economic mindset, claims the authors, undermines the role of civil servants, leads to increasing levels of public distrust, and repudiation of the modern state apparatus.
A second factor is Christian nationalism. While the authors contend that “libertarians may be natural candidates for deep state conspiracies,” they contend that Christian nationalists also believe “that a hidden power within the state, a state-within-the-state, is aiming to thwart God’s will” for America. For example, like libertarians “white Christian nationalists” loath socialism, but not as a matter of “economic redistribution between classes,” but as a “redistribution from the ethnically advantaged to the disadvantaged, welfare transfers … between races.” Thus, the authors argue that Christian nationalists “who wish to preserve their ethnic group’s historic advantages,” both ethnically and religiously, “frequently speak of religious and economic freedom from the government in the same breath.”
Protecting this freedom is the goal for Christian nationalists. So, when they see the administrative state acting contrary to their needs, whether it is “administering welfare programs” for the low income, or “devising public health and vaccine requirements” for all citizens, then the administrative state is the enemy, and it must be dismantled or “deconstructed.” To carry out this “anti-state” objective, Hanson and Kopstein claim that the Federalist Society is working on behalf of both libertarians and Christian nationalists, raising money through private donors, focusing “its energies on restaffing the United States judiciary at all levels, in the hopes of removing impediments to the restoration of the ‘constitutional order’ underpinned by the ‘free market’ and ethnoreligious traditionalism.” In the end, for both libertarians and Christian nationalists, the modern state is the barrier to achieving their economic and religious ends.
The third element is unitary executive theory. This theory argues that Article II grants the president unlimited authority to exercise executive powers, including dictating what the administrative state can or cannot do, or even if executive departments and programs should exist. The effect of the theory has led some political leadership scholars, for example, to assess it as a “danger to constitutional government.” Richard Nixon, for example, claimed executive privilege on his right to protect private communications concerning Watergate. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush’s administration invoked the theory when wiretapping American citizens’ phones and labeling some US citizens as “enemy combatants.” Later, Barack Obama and Joe Biden employed undisguised executive authority to promote favorable foreign and domestic policy initiatives.
Hanson and Kopstein declare the modern administrative state as a marvel of both human ingenuity and cultural and organizational progress.
Yet, the authors contend that while the aforementioned factors contribute to the denigration of the modern state, there is an even greater threat, one that supersedes the United States, that is part of a “larger phenomenon: a global wave of rebellion” against the modern state and democracy itself. According to Max Weber, the key to this type of political order is either a personal “sense of duty” or loyalty to the leader, or a commitment to the rule of law. If it is the latter, then procedure and process are key to an effective governance structure, but if it is the former, then it is led by chief executive “strongmen,” such as Donald Trump, who, after elected to office, often following a populist wave of support, establish themselves as patrimonial leaders, dismissing their constitutional duties and responsibilities, and surrounding themselves with loyalist sycophants. According to the authors, by the mid-twentieth century, patrimonial rule manifested in many countries around the world, like Ethiopia (Haile Selassie), the Dominican Republic (Rafael Trujillo), and the Philippines (Ferdinand Marcos). Today, patrimonial rule ranges from Russia (Vladimir Putin), Hungary (Viktor Orban), India (Narendra Modi), and, they argue, the United States (Donald Trump).
While each country’s politics and culture differ, Hanson and Kopstein argue that the trappings of patrimonialism, aimed at tearing down the modern state, are similar. In Hungary, for instance, Orban attacked the media, tinkered with the electoral system, and engaged in “crony capitalism,” where “oligarchic and political power are closely related.” In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu called for a series of judicial changes “that would not only undermine judicial independence but threaten to politicize … [Israel’s] civil service.” And since returning to power in 2012, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has cracked down on “independent journalists,” subjected NGO activity to “increasingly harsh penalties,” and “nullified” any vocal opposition to his authority (i.e., Boris Nemtsov and Aleksei Navalny).
To counter this “patrimonial wave and restore the modern state,” the authors offer four steps. First, clarify the problem, and educate the public about what will happen if the modern administrative state is abandoned. Second, resist “utopian schemes for replacing the liberal state.” Third, garner support for civil servants, such as issuing a “global call to public service.” Fourth, “reorient foreign policy to include (the) defense of rule-of-law states.” Collectively, they contend, these four steps mark the beginning of protecting the validity of the modern state, recognizing it is “embedded in our culture, in our educational institutions, and in our broader societies.”
Hanson and Kopstein declare the modern administrative state as a marvel of both human ingenuity and cultural and organizational progress. Humanity, they argue, would be incapable of living and working effectively and humanely without the institutional accouterments of the modern administrative state. Not only does the modern state exhibit procedural functionality, shown both through “civil servants, impartial judiciaries, and professional experts,” but also in providing the rewards of public services. Therefore, they agree it must be preserved and protected.
In Federalist #70, Alexander Hamilton recognized the worth of “good government.” He wrote, “It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks … to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property … to justice; [and] to the security of liberty.” Historically, at least in the United States, the modern state has grown somewhat proportionately with the needs, not just wants, of a progressive society. And democracy has flourished in the United States and propagated globally.
Still, Hanson and Kopstein approach the efficaciousness of the modern state as suspect, even fragile, where too much of a patrimonial leader like Trump, Modi, or Netanyahu, and their disdain for the modern state, will soon lead to its demise. On the contrary, though, the modern state, and by default democracy, are constitutionally sustainable and politically resilient.
Elaine Karmack of Brookings, for example, contends the first Trump administration did not “inflict permanent damage on our democracy.” Instead, she notes, “The guardrails of democracy held.” Congress, federalism, the judiciary, free press, and the civil service remained strong. And despite a landslide election in 2024, including the emergence of Elon Musk and DOGE, the downsizing of the Department of Education, and the laying off of thousands of federal workers, public schools remained open, planes continued to fly, hospitals stayed open, and Social Security checks were still deposited.
Presidential scholars Nicholas Jacobs and Sidney Milkis insist that Trump’s “presidentialism” raised genuine concerns about the escalation of “executive-centered partisanship,” particularly during the first 100 days of his second administration. However, even though Trump worked at breakneck speed, writing executive orders, enacting tariffs, deregulating programs and policies, and laying off federal workers, he was still checked by a contrarian press, a stubborn judiciary that slowed down executive actions, such as the deportation of illegal immigrants, and a civil service that remained steadfast. And despite the insipid and dysfunctional national party system, the Democrats continued to lob challenges against the “Big Beautiful Bill,” while the Republicans could barely keep their own party coalitions in check to back Trump policies.
Our government and nation are only as strong as the commitment of its people to the principles it espouses.
The “redeployment of administrative power” is critical not only for the development of “conservative Republicanism,” forged in the Nixonian era, but also for the continuation of the modern state. Richard Nixon, for example, adroitly used the administrative state to address his key political aims. For example, Jacobs and Milkis note that Nixon did not do away with LBJ’s “signature antipoverty program but … reconstituted it to give business interests greater influence over deployment of federal funds.” More importantly, Nixon converted the Bureau of Budget into the Office of Management and Budget, “adding a cadre of presidentially appointed assistant directors of policy” who effectively ran administrative and policy interference between the OMB director and merit-based civil servants. In other words, according to Jacobs and Milkis, neither Democrats nor Republicans want to see the retraction, and certainly not the elimination, of the modern state, primarily because it aids both parties in promoting and implementing their political agendas.
All presidents, to one degree or another, from the founding to the present, regardless of party, engaged in some type of political oversight marked by loyalty and executive-centered authority, all while pushing the limits of constitutional fidelity. This did not mean, however, the end of the modern state, and the beginning of patrimonial rule. It simply meant there was and continues to be an imbalance of executive power.
Congress’s abdication of the “Madisonian vision” is more troubling. Madison was more concerned about the possibility of “legislative tyranny” than the misuse of executive authority. In Federalist #48, for example, he writes, “The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments.” Establishing “public trust” in the legislature is critical to affirming not only constitutional checks, but in elevating “reasoned” debate over “passioned” cacophony between and among the people, and their representatives.
Yet, with the breakdown in the political party system, coupled with the increasing demand for and requisite influence of strong executive leadership, the likelihood of returning to legislative dominance will not happen. However, this does not excuse Congress from seeking ways to reform itself, recognizing that its incremental abdication of authority to the regulatory state over the last century was not in the best interest of either institution.
Where do we as a nation and people go from here? How do we approach the problems that plague us and threaten, according to Hanson and Kopstein, the destruction of the modern state? Is it a reverence for the hard-working and dutiful civil servants that form the core of the modern state? Is it reconstructing Madison’s vision? Is it reasserting a “vigilant and engaged citizenry that rededicates itself to representative democracy?” Regardless of how we continue, we must seek ways and embrace values that unite us rather than divide us. Our government and nation are only as strong as the commitment of its people to the principles it espouses.