Executivism, the Parallel State, and the Paradoxical Path to Restoring Democratic Accountability

Rebuilding democratic accountability after a period of personalist consolidation requires more than reversing executive orders or reinstating dismissed personnel. This paper argues that two interlocking structural conditions, executivism and the parallel state, made personalist consolidation possible under Trumpism and will outlast any single administration. Executivism is a bipartisan institutional zeitgeist that treats the presidency as the natural locus of policy production; the parallel state is the privatized governance infrastructure through which concentrated presidential authority is exercised. Together, they reinforce one another and are bound by a campaign-finance environment that links contracting to political contribution. I sketch a reform agenda organized around three institutional sites (the civil service and contracting infrastructure, Congress, and the judiciary) and confront the paradox that these reforms must be championed by a president willing to constrain the office.