This evolving research area focuses on lower-level administrative maneuvers and the importance of transnational links in both promoting and resisting these regressive changes. Methods of Resistance
: The executive alters judicial appointment processes, lowers retirement ages, or expands the size of the bench to pack courts with loyalists.
Scheppele is careful to distinguish this from mere “rule by law” (where law is a tool of power). Autocratic legalism is more insidious because it preserves the discourse of constitutionalism. It celebrates legality while hollowing it out. As she put it in a 2019 lecture at UPenn: “They are not burning the law books. They are rewriting them, one chapter per election, and insisting we still call the book a constitution.”
Phase 2: Neutering the Legislative and Regulatory Environment autocratic legalism kim lane scheppele upd
Autocrats in countries like Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and Venezuela have been observed "explicitly borrowing" strategies from one another. The 10-Step Autocratic Script
Recent discussions emphasize parallels in the U.S., particularly regarding attempts to overturn elections through judicial means and the use of executive orders to bypass congressional authority.
The goal of identifying the script is not academic; it is prophylactic. As she argues, "we can learn to spot the legalistic autocrats before autocratic constitutionalism becomes fatal". In an era where democracy is increasingly lost in a fog of statutory amendments and judicial appointments, the ability to recognize the warning signs of autocratic legalism may be the single most important skill for a citizenry seeking to defend its freedom. By naming the strategy, Scheppele has armed the world with the one thing autocracies fear most: a clear-eyed legal diagnosis of their own playbook. Autocratic legalism is more insidious because it preserves
According to Scheppele's framework, legalistic autocrats execute their illiberal agendas through a highly coordinated, incremental script. This method bypasses public alarm by executing changes through ordinary and extraordinary legal channels: 1. Exploiting the Democratic Mandate
Autocratic legalism sits in the treacherous space between them. It is, Scheppele writes, the use of liberal legal forms to achieve autocratic ends . The autocrat does not burn the constitution; he reinterprets it. He does not abolish parliament; he shrinks its quorum. He does not jail all opposition journalists; he passes a defamation law with such breathtakingly vague standards that only the government’s critics are charged.
Scheppele argues that because these leaders follow a "script," their actions are often predictable. They are rewriting them, one chapter per election,
Scheppele coined the term to describe how autocrats create a new legal system by stitching together individual constitutional provisions—often borrowed from respected liberal democracies—that, when combined, produce an illiberal outcome.
Autocrats borrow tactics—such as court-packing, constitutional amendments, and media control—from each other.
: Parliaments are sidelined through majoritarian bullying, decree powers, or structural rule changes.
One of the most sophisticated critiques of existing democracy indices emerges from scholars building on Scheppele’s work. A 2022 paper by Rohlfing and Wind—titled "Autocratic Legalism and the Measures of Democracy"—argues that traditional indices like Polity5, Freedom House, and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) often fail to capture the subtlety of autocratic legalism.
The process begins with a charismatic leader winning a free and fair democratic election. Claiming a mandate from "the people," the leader frames all subsequent institutional changes as necessary steps to fulfill the democratic will and crush entrenched, corrupt elites. 2. The Weaponization of "The Frankenstate"