Soft secession
Soft secession describes states building parallel institutional and financial capacity that reduces their dependence on federal partnership and builds resilience against federal mismanagement and legal capture.
ChristopherArmitage
Legal scholar and journalist.
Founder of The Existentialist Republic.
He studies the powers state governments hold under their own constitutions to resist unlawful federal action.
The constitutional default. States administer federal programs in partnership with federal agencies.
A state declines to help federal enforcement and keeps state resources out of it.
- 2Soft secession
A state builds parallel institutional and financial capacity that reduces its dependence on federal partnership.
Read the explainer - 3Oppositional federalism
A state uses its sovereign powers offensively, including prosecuting federal officials under state law.
Read the explainer A state refuses a federal demand that itself violates the Constitution.
Selected work
- States Have Capacity-Building Powers the Federalism Debate Overlooks
- Impeaching a Judge for Federalist Society Membership
- Soft Secession: Definition, Doctrine, and Place in the Taxonomy of Oppositional Federalism
- Sophist Originalism: The Fraud at the Heart of the Federalist Society
- Oppositional Federalism: A Taxonomy of State Constitutional Postures Under Authoritarian Capture
- It’s Time for Americans to Start Talking About “Soft Secession”
Citations and coverage
The frameworks
Oppositional federalism
Oppositional federalism is the offensive tier of state opposition, distinct from the defensive posture of non-cooperation.
A state can operate at different tiers in different policy areas at the same time. The full framework is set out in Oppositional Federalism: A Taxonomy of State Constitutional Postures Under Authoritarian Capture on SSRN.
Books
The American Reformation
How States Can Use the Constitution to Break Authoritarian Capture
View on AmazonToppling Tyrants
A Field Guide to Dismantling American Fascism
View on AmazonThe Existentialist Republic
Armitage is the founder and publisher of The Existentialist Republic, a civic affairs publication covering constitutional law, federalism, executive power, and government accountability.
Read on SubstackAbout
His legal commentary has appeared in Verfassungsblog, a constitutional law journal where scholars document democratic backsliding worldwide, and in JURIST, the legal news service based at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. State Court Report, a project of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, published his analysis of the capacity-building powers states already hold.
He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and served in the United States Air Force, where he deployed twice to the Middle East as a security forces base defense operations controller and worked as a first responder, including regular shifts as a 911 operator. Before he turned to writing, he worked as a corrections officer and a military police officer. He writes about American institutions as someone who served inside them and watched them fail in real time.
Read the full biographyContact
Media and speaking inquiries
camus@theexistentialistrepublic.com