Autocratic Legalism: Kim Lane Scheppele Upd Fix

Capture the courts and legislature to remove checks on executive power. Replace neutral civil servants with loyalists.

Example A — Hungary (post-2010, Viktor Orbán and Fidesz) autocratic legalism kim lane scheppele upd

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Scheppele's framework has not been without its critics. Some scholars argue that it gives too much weight to formal legality at the expense of substantive constitutional values. A 2024 Verfassungsblog article argued that the concept of autocratic legalism risks setting formal and substantive requirements of constitutionalism against each other, creating the "wrong impression that autocrats respect the formal requirements of constitutionalism when, in actuality, they do not". The author pointed to Hungary as an example: many of Orbán's laws were enacted in violation of the procedural requirements of the rule of law, suggesting that even the façade of legality may be absent. Capture the courts and legislature to remove checks

Scheppele warns: Autocratic legalism does not require a single dictator. It requires a across federal courts, state legislatures, and partisan attorneys general. Some scholars argue that it gives too much

The EU's Article 7 procedure—which allows for the suspension of voting rights of a member state in breach of its values—has proven to be a "nuclear option" too slow and politically fraught to deploy effectively against Poland or Hungary. The European Commission has pivoted to financial conditionality, linking rule of law adherence to access to EU funds, but even this has faced legal challenges and political obstruction.

is a governance strategy where democratically elected leaders use their electoral mandates to systematically dismantle constitutional checks and balances through legal and constitutional means. First popularized in political science by Javier Corrales and famously expanded upon by Princeton sociologist and legal scholar Kim Lane Scheppele in her seminal 2018 essay in The University of Chicago Law Review , this concept explains how modern democracies erode from within. Rather than deploying military tanks or staging violent coups, contemporary autocrats deploy teams of lawyers, piece-by-piece legislation, and constitutional reforms to lock themselves into power permanently.