This article uses Böckenförde’s dictum and Williams’s paradox of liberalism as a framework to critically analyse the current theoretical literature on democratic regression and rule of law backsliding in liberal democracies. It argues that the current literature is too strongly focused on (a) the problem of militant democracy (thereby neglecting militant constitutionalism) and (b) on the formal institutional safeguards that are needed to make liberal democracies resilient (thereby partially neglecting the need for a public ethos). In addition, it claims that such an ethos not only implies a democratic attitude but also a patriotic or constitutional attitude.
