The Stanfield Conversations 2025: Challenges to the Rule of Law and the Future of Liberal Democracy

Abstract

The Stanfield Conversations is an annual public dialogue at Dalhousie University that brings together prominent scholars, public intellectuals, and policy leaders to critically examine the state of democracy in our times. Moderated by CBC Ideas producer Mary Lynk, the 2025 event featured the reflections of Asha Rangappa, Senior Lecturer at Yale's Jackson School of Global Affairs and former FBI Special Agent, and Wayne MacKay, Professor Emeritus of Law, Schulich School of Law, who discussed the value of the rule of law in democracy.

Much has been written about the portents for the collapse of democracy. Threats abound—the failures of a globalized and financialized economy, aggressive autocrats, accelerating changes to the climate, populism itself—so it follows that we should worry about a future of democratic retreat or indeed the demise of democracy. But what if we need to stop looking ahead? What if we begin with the observation that democracy's failure is present, not future?

This observation foregrounds Asha Rangappa's warning that the United States is no longer experiencing “the threat of authoritarianism—we’re in it.” Global democratic indices now consider the US a “flawed democracy” ¹ and if it continues on its current trajectory, it likely “will not score as a democracy” when the events of 2025 are tallied next year. ² The question, then, is not whether democratic institutions can fail, or whether they will, but why they are failing despite legal safeguards.

Democracies are only as strong as their institutions, or so the axiom goes. Constitutions, independent courts, the separation of powers, and the free press function together to constitute, and sometimes to reconstitute, the democratic norms that orient political power in a shared direction. This insight is easy to test: pick any one of these pillars of democracy and imagine a society without them. A court system subject to political pressures ceases to be a legal arbiter and instead becomes another political bludgeon. A press publishing only those stories deemed acceptable by those wielding political power will reinforce that power. And so on. The trouble is that each of those institutions can survive absent democracy. As Rangappa explains, one can have a “paper democracy,” in which all the trappings of democracy exist without its substance.

The consistent and universal application of the rule of law guards against this hollowing out of institutions. Rangappa notes that people still have faith that the courts can and will “come in and save everything,” a testament to the judiciary's legitimate authority to halt or reverse power grabs. But this capacity depends on judicial independence, not just as a formal feature, but as a deeply embedded norm, without which the law cannot check abuses of power.

Democracy rests on norms. There are requirements, behaviours, and expectations—for example, the peaceful transition of power—that no statute can fully enforce. As those norms erode, so does democracy, even if vaunted democratic institutions survive. As Rangappa warns, authoritarianism grows as “people lose their loyalty to their institutions,” enabling autocrats to undermine the viability of democratic systems even as they trumpet their personal prowess. When leaders demand personal loyalty, separate from the loyalty owed to their offices, they weaken democratic norms and the foundation of democracy cracks.

The impulse to concentrate authority is not new. Canadian executive power has been concentrating for decades. ³ Indeed, as MacKay observes, “[t]he tendency to want to concentrate power is present in most executives.” Recent US efforts to concentrate power, though, are different and more dangerous. Rangappa points to powers that have traditionally been held by Congress that have been co-opted by the US presidency, as well as the US Supreme Court's “shadow docket,” which yields de facto rulings without hearings or justification. An expansive interpretation of executive powers, grounded in a strong reading of the idea of a “unitary executive,” sees the presidency as in sole possession of the power to guide the executive branch of government, free from constraint or accountability. “The constitutional crisis isn’t him [Trump],” Rangappa explains, “it's the fact that Congress and the Supreme Court [aren’t] doing something about it.” A robust democracy cannot survive if legal institutions exist in form but fail in function.

Gradual change is hard to perceive, and the slow erosion of democracy is no different. Part of the explanation for this difficulty is that the familiar rhythms of civic life continue. Ballots are printed, newspapers run, and legislative assemblies sit. Against that backdrop, particular moments stand out: the National Guard is deployed in unprecedented ways; the Supreme Court declines to restrain the reach for new powers by the presidency. But it is hard to stitch independent moments of sensationalism into a compelling argument for action and resistance when the age-old institutions of democracy persist.

“A problem for thee, but not for me,” the average Canadian might think. There is something to that: as MacKay explains, Canadians are somewhat insulated by our “more collective vision of government” enshrined in our system of parliamentary democracy. He is quick to add, though, that Canada is not immune to the erosion of essential democratic institutions. In his view, the quality of democracy depends on its citizens. If people disengage or are unwilling to call out abuses, then “no law is really going to protect you.” Institutions, warns MacKay, are not “an absolute guarantee.”

What is to be done? Not only must we act on the belief that democracy matters, as Rangappa insists, but also appreciate MacKay's caution that the rule of law alone is not enough to protect it. Citizens who assert their interest in self-rule transform institutions that might support democracy into actual institutions of democracy. Rather than thinking of democracy as a bundle of rights enforced by institutions, it is better to think of it first as a bundle of obligations on the part of its members, to respect and enforce democratic norms. Those of us committed to democratic renewal are not sowing for tomorrow as much as we are reaping for today. If we do not like the harvest, the best we can do is sow the seeds of a better future. No one will do it on our behalf.