Autocrats seek to reduce checks on their power to consolidate power for themselves. To do so, they control the legislature, judiciary, and other institutions that typically check executive power. 

Attacking the Rule of Law and Reducing Checks on Executive Power

Autocrats attack civil liberties to limit the ability of citizens to challenge their rule. They might attack press freedoms or consolidate media power, diminish voting rights, or attack civil society organizations (CSOs). Autocrats can also utilize emergencies as excuses for violating human rights and consolidating their power.

Attacking Civil Liberties

Autocrats manipulate voting laws and the way that elections are run so that they can more easily beat their opponents and continue to rule.

Attacking Free and Fair Elections

Autocrats can take a variety of routes to destabilize a country’s democracy and consolidate power. Tactics can be more overt—such as by amending or even replacing a country’s constitution to their benefit—or they can be more subtle—such as by shifting a country’s political culture in their favor.

Varied Approaches to Democratic Erosion

Autocrats primarily degrade democracy across three categories: by compromising the rule of law, attacking civil liberties, and violating the freeness and fairness of their countries’ elections. Autocrats can also violate democratic norms to change the culture of a country from a more democratic political culture to a more autocratic one. 

Wesleyan University

Democratic erosion occurs when a democratically elected government, typically led by an autocratic leader, attacks the institutions and norms of a country’s democracy, gradually decreasing the quality of their country’s democracy in the process. Agents of democratic erosion typically attack the freeness and fairness of democratic elections, basic civil rights and liberties, and checks on executive power/the rule of law.

Democratic Erosion

Haggard, S. & Kaufman, R. R. (2021). Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Haggard & Kaufman (2021)

Would-be autocrats competing in democratic elections can employ a variety of strategies to convince voters to elect them. Autocrats have recently benefitted from a growing dissatisfaction with democracy among voters and have also manipulated social divides among their electorates to garner support.

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