[Democratic Election] ➔ [Electoral Mandate] ➔ [Legalistic Reconstitution] ➔ [Autocratic Consolidation] 1. Rule by Law vs. The Rule of Law
Why Scheppele’s framing matters Scheppele’s analysis reframes the rule-of-law debate by showing that legality and authoritarianism are not mutually exclusive. Her work shifts focus from formal compliance with legal procedures to the underlying quality and function of law in a political system. This helps policymakers, scholars, and civil-society actors spot early-stage democratic backsliding that might otherwise be dismissed as “lawful” reform.
Scheppele argues that legalistic autocrats follow a predictable "script" to hollow out liberal democracies from within:
Autocrats in countries like Hungary (Viktor Orbán) and Turkey actively borrow legal tactics from one another, such as packing constitutional courts to validate executive overreach.
Independent civil society organizations—human rights groups, environmental advocates, anti-corruption watchdogs—are the immune system of democracy. Autocratic legalists attack them through a combination of laws: foreign funding restrictions that label them as foreign agents, intrusive reporting requirements that overwhelm their administrative capacity, and criminal defamation laws that chill their speech. In Russia, a law targeting "foreign agents" has been used to systematically dismantle civil society; in Hungary, the government has used similar tactics to drive human rights organizations out of the country. autocratic legalism kim lane scheppele upd
🗳️ The legal framework of elections is altered to favor the incumbent. This includes gerrymandering, changing campaign finance laws, or creating "media councils" that penalize independent reporting while subsidizing state-friendly outlets. Key Examples from Scheppele’s Research
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Scheppele has been a leading voice in analyzing how the European Union has (and has not) responded to internal democratic backsliding. In a 2025 seminar at Stanford University, she argued that the EU now faces two different democracy deficits. The first is the traditional, institutional problem—the EU being "too technocratic" and "too distant" from voters. The second, and far more dangerous, is the rise of internal democratic backsliding, in which member states that were once consolidated democracies begin to dismantle their own checks and balances.
Policy and civic responses
: Define autocratic legalism as the use of constitutional and legal methods to implement an illiberal agenda.
Comparative notes:
In this address, titled "Democracy in Danger: The Global Challenge of Autocratic Legalism," Scheppele took the audience through the "autocratic legalistic playbook" and argued that we need a new approach to thinking about the rule of law, one that prioritizes the restoration of democracy rather than blind adherence to legality.
Case studies (illustrative)
Scheppele introduces the concept of the to explain how these regimes sustain themselves.
The defense against autocratic legalism requires international pressure, strong civil society, and the swift action of supranational courts (e.g., the European Court of Justice) to deem legalistic reforms invalid under higher constitutional principles. Conclusion: The Continued Relevance of Scheppele in 2026
To protect democratic stability, we must look beyond the "legality" of a leader's actions and scrutinize whether those actions preserve or perish the democratic soul of the nation.
In her seminal 2018 paper published in the University of Chicago Law Review , Scheppele outlines how "legalistic autocrats" weaponize the very tools of liberal democracy to kill it. The strategy relies on two main pillars: Her work shifts focus from formal compliance with