Donald Trump's Contributions to Political Science

Abstract Donald Trump has been a prodigious flouter of political norms. His willingness to violate informal standards of behavior that political observers had long viewed as sacrosanct raises significant questions for scholars of American politics: how norms operate, when and why they are respected, and what happens when they erode or shatter. The common belief that norms are enforced, directly or indirectly, by public opinion has fared poorly under Trump; so, too, has confidence in institutional checks and balances. As Arthur Bentley argued in his classic work, The Process of Government, laws, norms, institutions, and democratic ideals are all likely to be consequential only insofar as powerful political actors are willing to exert pressure on their behalf. To better understand politics in the Trump era, we must better understand who has power, what they want, and when and how they will exert pressure to uphold or undermine key political norms.