The would-be autocrats’ toolkit: what do incumbents do when they undermine democracy?

Since the 1990s, incumbent-led autocratization in democracies is increasingly common. However, there is surprisingly little systematic and comparative research into the actions would-be autocrats actually take when they undermine democracy. We analyse the wealth of in-depth case studies of all cases of incumbent-led autocratization in democracies from 1990 until 2023 to develop such an overview of autocratic actions inductively. This empirically based would-be autocrats’ toolkit encompasses over 400 unique autocratic actions which we classify into seven overarching modes of autocratization: evasion, manipulation, infiltration, duplication, restriction, prohibition, and delegitimation. Would-be autocrats selectively use these different modes in varying arenas of democracy to gradually erode democracy. The toolkit provides a starting point to more systematically study autocratization within and across different cases, enabling the identification of sequencing and diffusion patterns, and helping generate better understanding of when autocratization is successful.

European Political Science Review, Online First, 1-20