Scheppele identifies regimes that stitch together constitutional provisions from various liberal democracies to create an amalgamation that actually centralizes power and undermines dissent.
If Hungary was the first mover, perfected the model after 2015. Scheppele, writing with her frequent collaborator Wojciech Sadurski, tracked how PiS replicated and even accelerated Orbán’s playbook: packing the Constitutional Tribunal, subordinating the ordinary judiciary through a new disciplinary chamber, and weaponizing lustration laws against judges who resisted. autocratic legalism kim lane scheppele upd
Autocrats change the fundamental rules of the game to ensure they cannot lose. Autocrats change the fundamental rules of the game
In a 2021 interview with the Journal of Democracy , Scheppele was asked whether she was optimistic. Her answer was characteristically lawyerly: “Optimism is not a category of analysis. But clarity is. If we call autocratic legalism by its name—if we stop saying ‘democratic backsliding’ and start saying ‘legalized autocracy’—then we have a chance to build the defenses. Without the diagnosis, there is no prescription.” But clarity is