Autocratic Legalism Kim Lane Scheppele Upd -

Four characteristics define the strategy:

In her landmark 2018 article, Autocratic Legalism (University of Chicago Law Review), Scheppele draws a sharp line between two familiar forms of governance. The first is —the brute-force law of dictatorships, where courts are rubber stamps and legal forms are mere window dressing for raw power. The second is liberal legality —the ideal of the rule of law, where general, public, prospective, and consistent norms bind both citizen and sovereign. autocratic legalism kim lane scheppele upd

Electoral laws are often redesigned to favor the incumbent. Gerrymandering, changes to campaign finance, and the introduction of complex voting rules make it nearly impossible for a fractured opposition to win, even if they hold a majority of the popular vote. Why It Works Four characteristics define the strategy: In her landmark

Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has pioneered the study of this phenomenon, coining the term What is Autocratic Legalism? Electoral laws are often redesigned to favor the incumbent

Scheppele developed this concept primarily to analyze the post-2010 trajectories of: