American democracy is in trouble—but not only for the reasons we think

Beyond elections, polarization, or money in politics lies a quieter, more dangerous failure: The state itself has stopped working. Policies are promised, passed, and praised—and then stall, unravel, or never arrive.

In Remaking the State, K. Sabeel Rahman argues this breakdown is no accident. The old administrative state was built as a technocratic, expert-driven black box—distant, unaccountable, and ultimately unable to deliver. The machinery of government lacked a democratic soul.

Rahman offers a different path: A moral vision of administration rooted not in expertise alone, but in purpose. He reimagines the state as a vehicle for democratic freedom, one that protects against harm, secures basic needs, and confronts the deeper structures of inequality.

Remaking the State argues that American democracy will survive only if government can once again deliver. Against both technocratic nostalgia and anti-government reaction, Rahman offers a bold new blueprint: Rebuild public institutions around democratic freedom, with stronger protections, broader public provision, deeper participation, and firmer checks on autocratic power. Urgent and clarifying, this is a bracing case for remaking the state before democracy is remade against us.