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Professor Aziz Huq presents on ‘Real Regime Change? The United States under the Second Trump Administration’.
2 July 2025
Professor Aziz Huq (University of Chicago), in this Sidney Seminar, examined whether the policies of the second Trump Administration constitute a break from the past or a continuation of longstanding trends. He acknowledged that this question can be investigated using different disciplinary lenses, including politics, economics, and law. His analysis focused on the legal lens, exploring whether the US has seen a paradigm shift in the legal and constitutional rules that are enforced through institutions such as the judiciary.
Professor Huq argued that the distinctiveness of the Trump era lies not in its goals but in a new set of means. While the projects being implemented are similar to those of previous US regimes, the ways in which these projects are being pursued are new in that they pay no regard to compliance with the law. Drawing on German scholar Ernst Fraenkel’s model of the ‘dual state’, Professor Huq argued that the novel ways in which the Trump Administration’s goals are being advanced echo the switch between the normative state (where the ordinary system of laws is maintained) and the prerogative state (where legal rules are violated).
Professor Huq concluded his presentation by positing that the dual state can be extended to characterise the manner in which both the Chinese and Russian states operate. This, he suggested, indicates a shift into a world in which international conflict embodies not necessarily a choice between forms of government but a contest between dual states that are distinguished solely by symbolic elements such as flags, anthems, and myths.
The presentation was followed by comments and questions from participants at the seminar. Professor Erin Delaney (UCL Laws) chaired the event.
A recording of the seminar will be available on this page soon.