Autocratic Legalism Kim Lane Scheppele Upd ((new)) Jun 2026

A dramatic illustration of how autocratic legalism continues to evolve within the EU came in January 2026. Hungary granted political asylum to Zbigniew Ziobro, Poland's former Minister of Justice under the PiS government, who was facing criminal investigations in Poland for alleged abuses committed during his tenure. A Verfassungsblog analysis called this "a textbook example of autocratic legalism"—legality deployed not to protect rights, but to shield power and dismantle mutual trust from within. By modifying its surrender rules to shield recognized refugees from extradition, Hungary set aside Treaty-level constraints designed to prevent precisely such uses of asylum. The case reveals how autocratic legalist tactics are becoming increasingly sophisticated, using legal procedures not merely to consolidate power at home but to create transnational safe havens for allied illiberal actors.

A recent development in countries like Hungary is the introduction of broad "Sovereignty Defense" acts. These laws grant governments discretionary power to investigate NGOs, media, and private citizens who receive any foreign funding, labeling their criticism of the state as a threat to national security. Because these are "rubber laws" with vague definitions, they allow for the total suppression of civil society without the need for traditional violence. The United States and "Counter-Constitutions"

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Through extensive comparative analysis of regimes like Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey, and patterns emerging in Poland, India, and Brazil, Scheppele maps a reproducible playbook used by these leaders:

In the end, autocratic legalism teaches a lesson that democracies forget at their peril: autocratic legalism kim lane scheppele upd

Others have proposed alternative or supplementary frameworks. The concept of "weaponized legalism" suggests that rather than a coherent project of autocratic consolidation, what we are seeing is a more chaotic phenomenon in which political competitors regularly reach for the law to undermine opponents, strengthen themselves, or advertise their power. The Brazilian concept of "autocratic infra-legalism" argues that autocrats can achieve many of their goals through administrative measures and legal tools beneath the level of formal constitutional change, challenging the assumption that autocratic legalism necessarily involves major constitutional engineering.

As noted above, Hungary's grant of political asylum to Zbigniew Ziobro represents a new frontier in autocratic legalist tactics—the use of asylum law to create a transnational shield for allied illiberal actors. A Verfassungsblog analysis called this "legalism deployed not to protect rights, but to shield power and dismantle mutual trust from within". A dramatic illustration of how autocratic legalism continues

Rather than a Schmittian sovereign dictating outside law, autocratic legalism declares emergencies (migration, pandemic, terrorism) and then converts emergency powers into ordinary, permanent law.

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. By modifying its surrender rules to shield recognized

Kim Lane Scheppele’s concept of describes a process where democratically elected leaders use their electoral mandates to dismantle constitutional checks and balances through legal means . Unlike traditional coups that use tanks and violence, autocratic legalists use the law to kill democracy. Core Definition

They use legislation to cripple the opposition, silence independent media, and capture the judiciary.