*This article was written by Chief Organizer Maria J. Stephan and was first published on Just Security.
Efforts in the United States to build a broad, cross-partisan, and cross-ideological pro-democratic front in the lead-up to the November elections is reminiscent of the kind of pro-democracy, anti-authoritarian movements that recently defeated far-right autocrats in Brazil, Poland, and France. In each of these cases, politicians, business leaders, religious actors, trade unions, popular sports figures, and other core groups united to reject politicians who peddled fear and vowed to strip away core freedoms. These groups and individuals instead rallied around those who espoused a more hopeful, pluralistic vision for their country.
In each of these instances, “big tent” organizing, including the active participation of key institutional pillars in democracy movements, was key to their success.
Pillars of support are organizations and institutions that provide any social or political system – democratic or autocratic – with the legitimacy, knowledge, skills, financial resources, and coercive power they need to maintain control. One can think of pillars — political parties, businesses, religious organizations, unions, professional associations, bureaucracies, educational institutions, media outlets, cultural institutions, security forces and more — as columns holding up a Greek temple. When shifts occur within these pillars, and they start to crack, they can bring the entire edifice down. In the case of former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement’s control of the GOP, the loss of key institutional support for that movement would significantly weaken it.
At the same time, pillars are not monolithic, and power within them is fluid. They are made up of individuals who have different identities, motivations, and interests: blue-collar workers, bureaucrats, journalists, teachers, financiers, pastors, soldiers, police officers, etc. They also have unique leverage. As the late sociologist Gene Sharp wrote in the book-length essay “From Dictatorship to Democracy”: “By themselves, rulers cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, train the police and army, issue postage stamps or even milk a cow.” In other words, without the skills, knowledge, and backing of individuals within key pillars, no autocratic leader, no matter how repressive or mendacious, can maintain power.
The notion that power is derived from the obedience and cooperation of the “ruled” highlights the strategic importance of pulling key elements of that population — “pillars” — away from an autocratic system and towards a democratic one.
When `Pillars’ Have Been Decisive
Historically, action by such pillars has proven decisive to the success of pro-democracy campaigns. Shipyard workers and trade unionists were the backbone of the Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s, whose strikes, walkouts, and other forceful nonviolent tactics helped defeat a communist authoritarian regime. During the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, white-owned businesses who felt the economic pressure of local and international boycotts, divestment, and sanctions pressed the South African government to negotiate with Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, ushering in that country’s democratic transition.
In Brazil, during the military dictatorship of the 1980s, doctors’ unions joined forces with workers across the country to organize protests, work slowdowns, and outright stoppages, paving the way to Brazil’s democratic transition. In the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos in the 1980s Catholic Church leaders, from parish priests and nuns all the way up to Cardinal Jamie Sin, used Church infrastructure and communications channels to mobilize the population to reject Marcos’ rule and support the democratic opposition.
During the U.S. civil rights movement, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and key unions including the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers organized sit-ins, walk-outs, and consumer boycotts under the banner of “jobs and freedom,” weakening key pillars of support for racial authoritarianism in the South.
While all of these were inspiring examples of mass movements challenging autocracy, the reality of later democratic setbacks in each of the countries highlights that vigilance, persistence, and sustained effort are necessary to defend and expand free and democratic societies. In the United States, where systemic racism continues to pose the most seminal challenge to achieving a democracy grounded in equal justice for all, efforts to promote racial equity are necessarily and fundamentally linked to achieving a truly multi-racial democracy.
More recently, in cases where democratically elected leaders have gone on to subvert the norms, freedoms, and institutions of democracy, pillars have played a key role in halting their progress.
Unions and Businesses
In South Korea, under the corrupt and scandal-prone rule of President Park Geun-hye, unions helped organize a coalition topping 1,500 organizations that led labor strikes and candlelight protests drawing millions of participants from across the country. The action prompted the Korean legislature to vote to impeach Park in 2016, removing her from office. In India, an umbrella organization of hundreds of farm unions coordinated mass actions across the country, including blockades and work stoppages, to successfully repeal farm bills that were un-democratically pushed through the Parliament by Modi’s BJP party in November 2021, a victory for Indian democracy.
During the Trump administration, federal workers and civil servants, a critical non-partisan pillar whose members take an oath to defend the Constitution, took a wide range of actions short of legally-prohibited labor strikes to challenge anti-democratic practices, including joining public statements, whistleblowing, deliberate inefficiency and “slow-balling” job functions, and ultimately, resigning in protest. Civil servants spoke out against attempts to cripple the Mueller investigation and politicize the Department of Justice, and delays in election certification.
In Brazil, where far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro relied heavily on the support of businesses and Christian leaders, these same forces contributed to his downfall. In August 2022, following Bolsonaro’s attacks on the judiciary and the electoral court, the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo — a business association representing more than 100,000 industries — authored a letter “In Defense of Democracy and Justice.” The letter garnered more than 100 signatories, including businesses, civic organizations, unions, and universities and was published in five national newspapers. It emphasized the relationship between strong democratic institutions and a strong economy. In August 2022, Instituto Ethos, a business-led civil society organization, published a piece denouncing businesses who expressed support for a coup if Bolsonaro wasn’t re-elected. Ethos stated clearly that the support of these businesses for violent rhetoric and anti-democratic behavior was actually against private-sector interests.
These Brazilian business actions resembled those undertaken by U.S. businesses during the 2020 election. On election day 2020, a diverse coalition consisting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the National African American Clergy Network issued a joint statement calling for the respect of election results and the peaceful transfer of power. Major trade associations like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable issued statements congratulating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their election win, signaling to Donald Trump and his supporters that it was time to step aside. While their actions did not prevent Trump from attempting to overturn the election results, they did establish an important precedent for the business sector’s vigorous denunciation of January 6th, with some corporations suspending campaign contributions to politicians who undermined the electoral process. (That withholding of campaign contributions unfortunately was not sustained).
In Germany, where the country’s history of Nazism has sensitized the private sector to the importance of confronting anti-democratic forces, businesses have played a key role in challenging the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party. Business leaders have organized campaigns like Welcome Saxony to educate business leaders, employees and the general public about the important positive role of diversity and immigration in the German economy. They have spearheaded grassroots organizing to spread the importance of defending democracy and have publicly spoken out against the far right. Although the strong performance by the AfD in recent regional elections in Saxony and Thuringia is worrisome, it has galvanized more actors in Germany’s powerful business community to organize and publicly dissent. Experiences from Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United States offer insights into obstacles and opportunities for business involvement in pro-democratic activities, as well as the role played by activist and civil society actions in bringing that about.
The Role of Faith Leaders
Faith leaders have wielded moral authority and the power of the pulpit to challenge autocracy. In July 2020, more than 150 Brazilian Catholic bishops signed a “Letter to the People of God,” which denounced the Bolsonaro administration’s non-transparent handling of COVID-19 and its actions “approaching totalitarianism…encouraging acts against democracy…[and its] repugnance for…freedom of thought and the press.” The letter provoked controversy and backlash, with some pro-regime Brazilian bishops as well as conspiracy theorists like Olavo de Carvalho denouncing the signees as “communists [and] satanists.” In January 2021, more than 375 Catholic and evangelical leaders signed a statement calling for Bolsonaro’s impeachment. And in October 2022, at least 15 religious groups signed a document criticizing Bolsonaro’s theocratic messaging as well as his demonization of women, Afro-Brazilians, LGBT+ people, and Indigenous communities. In Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, a sizeable number of religious voters who had previously supported Bolsonaro, notably evangelicals, shifted their support to his opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the election, suggesting the influence of these public actions.
In Poland, where the far-right Law & Justice Party (PiS), which came to power in 2015, gutted institutional checks and balances and fueled anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment, lawyers and clerics played a critical role in removing key pillars of support from their increasingly autocratic rule. Influential Polish bishops, who saw how Catholic imagery and religious processions were being used to whip up ultra-nationalist sentiment, refused to celebrate mass during Poland’s Independence Day rallies and used religious rhetoric to mobilize support for the pro-democratic opposition.
Meanwhile, Polish judges resisted the politicization of the judiciary via the two major judges associations, Iustitia and Themis. These groups drafted legal opinions about the anti-democratic reforms and urged the European Union to stand firm towards the Polish government. They encouraged public mobilization by disseminating educational videos, calling for mass protests (including the “march of 1000 robes” in January 2020), and engaging in acts of civil disobedience, like continuing to show up for work after being forced into retirement by PiS legislation. Their activities were not unlike those undertaken by Pakistani lawyers, judges, and bar associations who formed the “Save the Judiciary” movement in 2007 and challenged then-President Pervez Musharraf’s attempts to undermine judicial independence, including by marching in the streets in their distinctive black robes.
In Hungary, where religious leaders, symbols, and slogans have been used to bolster Viktor Orbán’s brand of Christian nationalism, evangelical groups like the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship (HEF) and its leader, Pastor Gábor Iványi, have engaged in public opposition and acts of defiance. That has included Iványi (who officiated Orban’s wedding and baptized his two eldest sons) refusing to attend Orban’s inauguration. Ivanyi and other religious leaders issued an “Advent Statement” challenging Orban’s claim that Hungary is being governed in accordance with “Christian Liberty,” and HEF set up soup kitchens to support immigrants and asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, at a time when Orbán’s Fidesz party has attempted to centralize control over the education system, accusing universities and teachers of indoctrinating students in leftist ideologies, a teachers’ movement has emerged to challenge autocracy. An organization of teachers called Tanítanék (meaning “I wish to teach” in Hungarian), which was founded in 2016 after one of its teacher founders was fired, has supported striking teachers and a range of protest activities that have involved tens of thousands of teachers, students, parents, and concerned citizens. Tanítanék boasts a mailing list of more than 90,000 people, making it one of the strongest civic groups in an increasingly repressive Hungary. While Fidesz’s intense grip on most institutions of power in Hungary poses an obstacle to pro-democratic organizing, growing challenges to Orban’s policies, including demonstrations last spring involving tens of thousands of people who rallied behind opposition figure Péter Magyar, a former government insider, are evidence of growing cracks in Fidesz’s edifice.
Security Forces and the Military
One of the most important pillars of support for any political system are security forces, which have both enabled and resisted authoritarian ambitions. In Chile, after General Augusto Pinochet was defeated in the 1988 plebiscite, Air Force General Fernando Matthei told reporters that Pinochet had lost, signaling to the dictator that he could no longer rely on the support of the armed forces. In the Philippines under Marcos, critical parts of the military refused to obey orders to shoot at peaceful protestors and broke away from the dictatorship, leading to the victory of the democratic opposition.
More recently in Ukraine, during the 2004-05 Orange Revolution, a network of retired military officers and veterans helped prepare active-duty soldiers to refuse illegal government orders to fire on unarmed protestors during mass demonstrations, paving the way to the restoration of constitutional democracy. In Venezuela, under the left-wing dictatorship of Hugo Chavez, some of his key military advisors deserted him during the 2020 presidential campaign, publicly refusing to attend a ceremony for retiring officers. While the small size of the boycott did not pose a threat to Chavez’s grip on power, it nevertheless sent a strong signal that his actions violated norms of democracy.
In the United States, after the January 6th attack in 2021, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a politically appointed body comprised of the top eight military officials in the country, published an unprecedented letter to the joint forces stating plainly that the events of January 6th were an assault on American democracy and against the rule of law. It also emphasized how the U.S. military will continue its 250-year legacy of defending the Constitution and reiterated that President-elect Joe Biden would be the next commander in chief, in line with the rule of law. This refusal to go along with attempts to politicize and weaponize the military to foment an autogolpe, or insider coup, was critical to the peaceful transfer of power.
In these cases, powerful institutional pillars used moral, social, political, economic, cultural, and financial levers of power to push back against democratic backsliding. (My organization, the Horizons Project, and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University have documented many such instances in this living Pillars of Support document.) Summarizing key insights from the cases, Adam Fefer describes how these pillars have used dialogue and institutional actions, as well as protests and acts of non-cooperation, and the provision of material support to sanction autocratic behaviors and support democratic actors and institutions. Often, their actions were accompanied and prompted by the presence of a popular movement pushing and pulling on those pillars to withdraw support from autocratic regimes. As a cross-partisan, cross-ideological movement to block electoral autocracy and to enable the difficult but necessary push to build a pluralistic, inclusive, multi-racial democracy in the United States continues to grow, pillar action will be key to its success.