Autocratic legalism is the name legal scholar Kim Lane Scheppele gave, in a 2018 article in the University of Chicago Law Review, to cases in which "electoral mandates plus constitutional and legal change are used in the service of an illiberal agenda." Leaders following this pattern, she argues, "dismantle by law the constitutional systems they inherited," which makes the slide toward autocracy hard to recognise early (Scheppele 2018).
Examples Scheppele discusses
- Hungary: using a two-thirds parliamentary majority, Viktor Orbán's government rewrote the constitution and many laws, weakening courts, media and other independent institutions; Scheppele writes that he "carried out an autocratic revolution with exquisite legal precision" (Scheppele 2018).
- Russia: Vladimir Putin consolidated power partly by "canceling elections of local governors and appointing his own handpicked candidates instead" (Scheppele 2018).
- Turkey: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government expanded the Constitutional Court while filling the new seats with judges of its choosing (Scheppele 2018).
- Poland: the then-government began "to travel down the same road using a map drawn by Orbán," starting with the Constitutional Tribunal (Scheppele 2018).
- Venezuela and Ecuador: Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa each used a constituent assembly to write a new constitution; in Venezuela's case it strengthened the presidency and eliminated the senate (Scheppele 2018).
- Egypt: Mohamed Morsi's government tried to lower the judicial retirement age in order to take over key judicial posts, a tactic Scheppele compares to Hungary's (Scheppele 2018).
Related concepts
Scheppele's framing overlaps with Ozan Varol's stealth authoritarianism and with what Nancy Bermeo calls executive aggrandizement. On this site it corresponds most closely to Pillar 1 (politicizing independent institutions) and Pillar 3 (aggrandizing executive power) of the Seven Pillars.