Democracy institutionalizes and thrives on pluralism not only in the form of competitive elections, the separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism, but also at the level of civil society. As Robert Putnam argued in his emblematic 1995 article “Bowling Alone” (and subsequent book by the same name), a dense and unruly thicket of associations that pursue independently chosen goals, interests, values, and ends is the distinctive feature of a robust democratic society.

Some intermediary institutions like media organizations and political parties contribute to democracy directly, for instance by informing the public and organizing political competition. Others do so indirectly. For example, in a legal system where citizens depend on private law firms for legal representation, these institutions have a critical role as custodians of the rule of law. Likewise, although scientific expertise sometimes comes into tension with democratic self-rule, medical associations, hospitals, research institutes, or public health organizations are essential for enabling social trust, public awareness, and collective action.

Of course, not all civil society institutions advance liberal democratic ends. Associations that pursue exclusionary, hateful, or anti-liberal agendas undermine rather than reinforce liberal democracy. As Sheri Berman has argued, in the absence of robust political institutions, interwar Germany’s “extraordinarily vigorous associational life” contributed to the downfall of the Weimar Republic.

While not all civil society institutions necessarily support democracy, however, authoritarianism predictably targets associational pluralism in general, and certain kinds of institutions in particular. Government-led attacks on independent media companies, civil rights and advocacy organizations, universities, disfavored religious groups, and law firms are among the telltale signs of democratic backsliding.

Why are some civil society institutions regular targets of authoritarian suppression? For one thing, institutions that adhere to well-defined professional values and norms thwart the regime’s demand for political loyalty and social control. Whether they are guided by journalistic standards, scholarly rigor, scientific validity, legal ethics, or faith doctrine, these institutions answer to a different authority.

Second, authoritarianism consolidates by metastasizing into civil society institutions, replacing internal governance mechanisms with hierarchical mechanisms of control, imposing ideological conformity in place of expert judgment. Although these changes are less dramatic than dissidents being frog-marched into jail, they are insidious. They corrupt the social infrastructure of liberal democracy, whose eventual restoration requires much more than simply voting out the autocrat.

On the bright side, if intermediary institutions are essential for a free society as Tocqueville argued, then well-established institutions can also be a source of democratic resilience under authoritarian pressure. They can arrest the momentum of authoritarian encroachment like oyster beds in the path of a storm surge. They can also make the eventual climb from the precipice less arduous by keeping civic habits alive at the meso-level.

It is precisely their role as sentinels of democratic pluralism, I contend, that justifies the extensive legal safeguards and privileges that organizations enjoy. Depending on their framework of incorporation, organizations may count on tax exemptions, perpetual existence, limited liability, asset partitioning, and bankruptcy protections. These extraordinary privileges cannot be legitimized solely by reference to the private goods that these entities generate for their members. Rather, they are justified to the extent that they enable robust civic pluralism and frustrate the totalizing reach of public power.

In other words, civil society institutions have both a democratic duty and an existential imperative to use their organizational and material resources to resist authoritarian encroachment. But although “resistance” may conjure grand gestures of defiance, most institutions can fulfill this duty by simply declining to surrender their institutional autonomy and refusing to swerve from their mission.

Unfortunately, the responses of major U.S. private institutions to blatant government encroachment under the second Trump administration are not encouraging so far. Whether fearing for business deals, outsized endowments, security clearances, federal grants, broadcast licenses, or insider access, many elite institutions have adopted a duck-and-cover strategy and have failed to live up to their reputation as the steadfast guardians of their respective missions.

This is short-sighted. The institutions that play a critical part in sustaining liberal democracy are precisely those that stand to lose the most from its demise. Unlike human beings, organizations famously lack “a body to kick, a soul to damn.” Rather, an organization’s mission (and its ability to pursue it with integrity) is constitutive of what ‘it’ is. The imposition of external rules and standards, such as requirements of political loyalty or ideological conformity, threatens their core identity. A news organization that jettisons journalistic ethics for government favors is simply a propaganda outlet.

Authoritarianism succeeds by making dissent costly. When the authoritarian gale sends citizens running for cover, civil society organizations must anchor democratic principles. The fact that they cannot be jailed, deported, or tortured vests organizations with greater responsibility to take risks on behalf of everyone who has a stake in preserving the liberal order. When these institutions bowl over, democracy loses.