The Takeover of Law Enforcement and Security Agencies as a Pivotal Factor in Democratic Decline | A Comparative Analysis
Law enforcement and security agencies are central pillars of democratic rule, and therefore, their capture is a pivotal factor in democratic decline. A comparative analysis by IDI experts reveals that this takeover is often achieved quietly while striving to present all steps as lawful.
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The Role of Law Enforcement in Democratic Decline
Attempts to weaken and dismantle contemporary democracies require near-complete control over the state’s governmental and administrative apparatus. Thus, such attempts necessarily feature moves to take control of state institutions, with the highest priority targets being the agencies responsible for policing, security, intelligence, enforcement, and prosecution, along with the judicial branch.[1] Usually, control over these organizations is achieved quietly, by means of appointments and dismissals, while striving to present all such steps as lawful.[2]
In states with a democratic background and foundations, creeping seizure of law enforcement, security, and prosecution agencies, and the subsequent improper operation of these agencies, are an obvious indication of democratic decline that has been evident around the world over the last three decades, and particularly during the last 15 years. This kind of practice is conducted by leaders who are elected via democratic elections, and if not halted, it can bring about democratic breakdown or bring states closer and closer to becoming non-democratic regimes that rely on force, centralization of power, and control by means of security forces and law enforcement agencies.[3]
Policing, intelligence, security, enforcement, and prosecution agencies play a key role in democratic decline—specifically, in taking over the entire governmental apparatus; in engineering the public sphere by seizing and abusing oversight mechanisms, centers of knowledge and information, and levers of power; and in controlling the general public during the period in which the power of the governing regime is built and reinforced. This role has been evident in processes of severe democratic decline in several countries in recent times.
Comparative Insights from Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, and Poland
In Hungary, one of the first steps taken by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán following his victory in the 2010 elections was to take over the Supreme Court by appointing his own chosen justices, altering foundational constitutional laws; and passing legislation relating to the activities of security agencies. In an amendment to the law from 2010, the police force was split into three parts: the main national police, the National Protective Service, and the Counter-Terrorism Center. The National Protective Service reports to the minister of interior, and is charged with anti-corruption activities in the governmental sphere, giving it power to investigate public officials; the Counter-Terrorism Center is a new body authorized to conduct covert surveillance, searches, wiretapping, and interrogations of citizens and corporations.[4] These changes, along with others, allowed the government to effectively expand the scope of its ability to monitor public officials, civilians, and corporations, depending on the government’s definition of terms such as “corruption” and “terror.” Law enforcement and security agencies have also been re-staffed with government loyalists, as part of a state policy to replace the “evil elite.”[5]
The Hungarian rulers have used police to crack down on civil society organizations that criticize of the Orbán regime. In 2014, several police raids were conducted on the offices of civil society organizations without advance warning, and employees were interrogated and even detained for further questioning.[6] In addition, the police were used to enforce the government’s strict anti-immigration policy following the declaration of a state of emergency due to the wave of immigration in 2015. This policy included police officers illegally pushing asylum-seekers back into Serbia, without a detailed examination of their application, a concrete decision, or a chance to appeal. Descriptions of physical violence against asylum-seekers, including beatings with batons and iron bars, were discussed in the European Court of Human Rights in several cases where the court determined that Hungary’s police policy toward asylum seekers was “inhumane.”[7]
Since 2015, the Hungarian government, led by the right-wing Fidesz party, has been exploiting the ongoing state of emergency for control and the violation of fundamental rights. This state of emergency began with a declaration of an “immigration state of emergency,” which continued with a “medical state of emergency” due to the COVID pandemic, and then into a “security state of emergency” in light of the Russia-Ukraine war. This continuing state of emergency has enabled the government to restrict criticism.[8] The state of emergency left the police with expansive powers, which have been used to suppress demonstrations, arrest opponents, and conduct illegal detentions of asylum-seekers.
In 2020, security forces and prosecution agencies were used for political purposes in the enforcement of a new law specifically designed to prevent the spread of “false information” regarding the state’s anti-COVID measures. Dozens of individuals were arrested for social media posts that were considered “dissemination of false information,” and were charged with offenses punishable by one to five years in prison.[9] In 2022, following a long strike by teachers protesting their worsening employment conditions, the police used force to disperse demonstrations, and as the demonstration escalated, used tear gas against protesters, including high-school students who participate in the demonstrations.[10]
In December 2023, the Hungarian parliament passed a law enacted to establish the Sovereignty Protection Office, granted broad powers including: surveillance, information gathering, investigation, and use of administrative measures against organizations, political parties, and citizens suspected of ties to foreign entities. This has been done without the need for court approval and without being subject to the Criminal Procedure Code.[11] Thus, in addition to the problematic use of the police and of existing enforcement and intelligence agencies, a new body was established without adequate supervision and control.
Turkey has also undergone severe democratic decline under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, together with its coalition parties—to the extent that the country has ceased to be a democracy. The AKP won the 2002 elections promising democratization, and even membership of the European Union. During the party’s first term in office, from 2002 to 2007, the government took decisive steps aimed at gaining full control of the military, which until then was considered the protector of the country’s democratic and secular constitution, and fully subordinating it to incumbents. The AKP and its partners, led by Erdogan, advanced two interconnected moves: legislative amendments and the appointment of loyalists to key positions. Among other things, through legislative amendments, the National Security Council became a solely advisory body via legislation, and its composition was changed in a way that reduced the dominance of military personnel in it. The new civilian secretary appointed to the Council convened it only occasionally.[12] Thus, during its first term, through a combination of legislation and appointments, the government succeeded in gaining partial control of the military, the main purpose of which was to subordinate it to its authority and undermine its status as guardian of the secular and democratic constitution.
Immediately afterward, specifically during its second term, the Muslim coalition led by Erdoğan turned to take control of the policing, investigation, intelligence, and prosecution agencies, while simultaneously tightening its grip on the military. Most prominent were the steps to purge the military of opponents, via new appointments alongside dismissals, investigations, prosecutions, and highly publicized trials of senior officers, most of them secular, liberal, critical or with deeply rooted nationalist and republican views. These purges reached a peak between 2008 and 2010, with multiple criminal trials of senior military officers, as well as journalists and opposition politicians, based on questionable indictments using suspicious evidence.[13] However, the purges of the military, just like steps to install government loyalists in the media and academia, largely rested on the earlier takeover of the police and the public prosecution. Control of the police was achieved mainly by loyalists of Erdogan’s Muslim front, and in particular on the dominance gained by members of the Gülen movement— then Erdoğan’s Islamist allies—over the police and the prosecution.[14] Dominance over the police and the prosecution was achieved in a relatively short period of a few years, and according to estimates, around 2012-2013 the takeover of Turkish police was almost complete.[15]
Following the widespread protests in Turkey in 2013 (dubbed the “Gezi Park protests” after one of the locations where a large protest took place), the police took a particularly harsh approach against the demonstrators, including severe police brutality that was completely unjustified, according to extensive testimonies, such as plastic bullets, water cannons spraying water mixed with harmful chemicals, and recriminations against professionals who assisted the protesters in their line of duty, such as doctors and lawyers. Several protesters were killed during these police actions, many were injured, and more than 9,000 protestors were arrested.[16] Similarly, citizens who voiced criticism of the government on social media were arrested or cautioned.[17]
Later, following a rift between Erdoğan’s people and his former allies, the Gülenists, which culminated in a July 2016 coup attempt by some Gülen supporters, Erdoğan used the policing and prosecution agencies to conduct mass purges of the civil service, including the judiciary, and further move the country towards autocracy. Thus, for example, under the banner of national state of emergency some 150,000 people were arrested, including many senior judges of the highest courts in Turkey, with many kept in detention for extended periods without (or awaiting) trial. Large numbers of activists, opposition figures, journalists, and academics were interrogated, and many of them were indicted. Around 130,000 public officials were dismissed.[18] The positions of those dismissed or detained – Gülen supporters and others who refused to be the rulers’ lackeys, including in the military, the police, and the prosecution, were of course filled by government loyalists, making the state apparatus entirely beholden to and in the service of the ruling party.
In Venezuela, the seizure of the security, intelligence, and policing agencies, alongside the takeover of the judicial branch, were of the highest priority, and played a central role in gaining control of the civil service, bolstering the position of the incumbents, and repressing independence, criticism, opposition, and protest against the government. As early as 1999, just months after the rise to power of President Hugo Chávez, the Supreme Court justices and the majority of the senior officials in the Public Prosecutor’s Office were replaced with members of the Chávez regime or its supporters.[19] During the early years of the regime, the significant presence of opposition figures in the political, governmental, and public spheres had a certain restraining effect (although limited) on this takeover process.[20]
However, in the wake of extensive protests and riots against Chávez in 2002, during which he was even briefly removed from power, Chávez almost completely purged the Venezuelan military and the Metropolitan Police, the second most powerful police force in the country, of independent, professional, and opposition elements. The commanders of the Metropolitan Police and around 200 military officers were dismissed, forced to “resign”, or were marked and demoted. Several generals and admirals were put on trial for rebellion, and eight Metropolitan police officers were put on criminal trial. All these were of course replaced with Chávez loyalists. The takeover of the Metropolitan Police was essentially completed in 2004 with the appointment of a new mayor of Caracas, and in 2008 the force was put under direct control of the Chávez regime via a presidential decree.[21]
Thus, the military and the police became central pillars of the regime, contributing greatly to the replacement of democracy with autocracy in Venezuela.[22] Among other things, the police and the prosecution investigated, persecuted, and put on trial opposition members of the National Assembly, who managed against all odds to gain a majority in the Assembly for a short period of time;[23] and fiercely put down any demonstrations against the regime—for example, in 2014, and again during 2024.[24] The military, which was used by Chávez from the beginning of his rule, though not fully and blatantly as an army of the ruler, has since been given many different tasks by the ruling power, including overtly civilian activities for the benefit of the government, such as replacing employees, offices, or organizations that fail to rapidly, efficiently, and zealously fulfill the orders they have received.[25]
In Poland, beginning in 2015, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) advanced the perception that the Polish public service had become political and based on loyalty. Connections to politicians and their patronage became key conditions for a civil service career.[26] In parallel, PiS pursued a program called the “Good Change,” which included replacing the senior officialdom of the judiciary, civil service, public media, state-owned corporations, cultural institutions, and other public bodies – all with the aim of removing an “evil elite” and replacing it with a “good” elite that would serve “the nation’s interests.”[27] For example, in December 2015 a new Police Commander-in-Chief was appointed, who in his first televised appearance denounced the conduct of his predecessor, as part of a propaganda show alongside the secretary of state responsible for the police. In February 2016, the police commissioner Commander-in-Chief was again replaced, the reason for which was not announced to the public.[28] Similarly, shortly after the PiS’s victory in the 2015 elections, the Public Prosecutor General’s Office was merged with the Ministry of Justice and brought under the control of the Minister of Justice, thus centralizing multiple powers of investigation, indictment, and investigative oversight under the party’s ministerial appointee.[29]
During the period of rule by PiS and its partners, police violence was used at anti-government demonstrations. For example, in July 2023, an independent press photographer was violently arrested during a demonstration in Warsaw, despite presenting a press card, and he was interrogated for six hours, even though his leg had been broken during the arrest. He was eventually released without being charged.[30] In October 2023, another photographer, who had been found guilty of attacking a police officer during a demonstration against the ban on abortion, won her appeal against this conviction. In this case, the photographer had also attempted to show her press credentials, and yet was arrested and charged. Under the PiS government, the Polish police used extensive force against demonstrators, including tear gas and batons.[31] On one occasion, Member of Parliament Magdalena Biejat was pepper sprayed when trying to show her parliamentary identity card to the police.[32]
In October 2023, ahead of the elections that were eventually won by the Democratic Party, two senior commanders in the Polish army resigned from their positions, expressing concerns about attempts by the ruling party to politicize the Polish army.[33] Following the victory of the Democratic Party at the end of 2023, the new minister of the interior announced that the police would no longer act as the government’s “private security” agency, and highlighted the damage to public trust under the previous regime. He especially noted the use of police forces to protect the home of the former PiS prime minister, Jarosław Kaczyński, even when he was not in office, in particular surrounding the annual commemoration for Kaczyński’s brother, Lech, who served as president of Poland on behalf of the same party until he was killed in a plane crash in 2010. The incoming minister also announced his intention to reduce the use of masked police forces, and to develop a new policy that includes a requirement to wear a police ID when operating with face coverings, which will be permitted only in exceptional circumstances to be defined in advance.[34]
Four Central Roles of Law Enforcement Agencies in Democratic Decline
The brief examples presented here—from Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, and Poland—demonstrate the key roles played by enforcement authorities and security agencies in processes of democratic decline. In general, one can discern four distinct and central roles that these bodies may play in processes of severe democratic decline, once they have been fully or partially taken over.
First, policing, intelligence, security, enforcement, and prosecution agencies are used to take control of the state bureaucracy and mechanisms of oversight, information, and power in society. Sometimes, this is done by means of criminal investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of officeholders, professionals, and others in positions of influence. For example, these agencies can be used to investigate, threaten, or arrest journalists, and to conduct investigations or launch various legal proceedings against media organizations. This leads to weakening, dissolution, or control of independent media organizations, and gives the regime great power over the dissemination of its messages.[35] Similarly, these agencies can be deployed against the opposition, civil society organizations, and other critical elements, such as researchers in academia.[36] In this manner, security and enforcement agencies may be weaponized to coerce loyalty to the regime and to remove or silence independent, professional and law-abiding or politically adversarial figures from key positions in oversight, information, and power centers, silence them or compel their obedience to the rulers–rather than uphold the law and the public interest – through force and intimidation. Accordingly, these agencies occupy a distinct and central role in constructing a comprehensive system that disrupts—and in the worst instances wholly prevents—democratic functioning, by harnessing state and societal institutions for this purpose.
Second, enforcement and security agencies are critical for ensuring long-term rule. They can be used to create persistent dependence on the regime, especially over time. This is particularly relevant with regard to those who have accumulated power and influence under the auspices of the democratic decline and who are protected from the enforcement and security agencies as long as they toe the line. Law enforcement, investigation, and prosecution agencies are the most effective bodies for ensuring that even those who have acquired status, money, or power under the auspices of the rulers and democratic decline will be vulnerable and dependent. Thus, the enforcement and prosecution authorities which protect key figures, may also reopen investigations into them or reveal compromising information about them, in order to maintain their dependence on the regime. In effect, once they have been taken over, these bodies serve to preserve the power of the ruling group and consolidate it by fostering dependence, backed up by the reliable threat of force, if needed.[37]
Third, regimes undergoing democratic decline —or in more serious cases, hybrid regimes that contain democratic remnants, even though the state is no longer a functioning democracy—often make efforts to present themselves as democratic states, with free and fair elections, rule of law, separation of powers, and protected fundamental rights. To this end, such regimes need not only the courts, but also the investigation and prosecution agencies, which supposedly operate according to the law, but in fact serve the rulers.[38] In this sense, law enforcement and security agencies serve as a source of legitimacy for regimes that seek to appear democratic, even when they no longer actually are. This is essential for both international and domestic legitimacy.
Fourth, the enforcement and security agencies are used to silence criticism of the government. This occurs when other means—such as vilification, delegitimization, media bias, and the formal means mentioned above, such as restrictions on freedom of expression, or taxation of civil society organizations—prove insufficiently effective to neutralize criticism. In such cases, these agencies are deployed to suppress criticism by quashing broad engagement or mobilization, such as large-scale demonstrations, and using force against organizations and protests, or clearly and directly threatening the use of such force.[39] The use of law enforcement and security agencies to limit the freedoms of expression and protest is also prominently expressed in massive enforcement and intimidation efforts to prevent critical posts on social media, and in violent and one-sided policing of certain demonstrations.
In conclusion, when policing, security, intelligence, enforcement, and prosecution agencies are taken over to the extent that they no longer regard the law as their sole source of ultimate authority, they are ripe for becoming tools to undermine democratic rule. In such cases, they may perform four primary functions in weakening democracy: providing unique support to particular rulers and their allies in seizing government systems and mechanisms of oversight, information, and power in society thereby changing their very nature; creating and preserving a persistent dependence on the rulers to perpetuate it and entrench their power; creating and preserving a pretense of democracy to attain legitimacy for the continued activities of the governing regime; and suppressing criticism of the regime. The extent to which, and the way in which, these roles are fulfilled may change along the various stages of democratic decline, and its specific characteristics in a particular country.
[1] On the judicial branch during democratic retreat, see, for example: Daphne Benvenisty, “This Was How the Mechanism for Judicial Appointments Signposted the Change of Democratic Regimes in Poland and Hungary,” Israel Democracy Institute website, April 13, 2023, https://www.idi.org.il/articles/49005; Oded Ron, Mordechai Kremnitzer, and Yuval Shany, Democracy in Crisis (Israel Democracy Institute, 2020), https://www.idi.org.il/media/14910/democracies-in-crisis.pdf; Guy Lurie, “The Invisible Safeguards of Judicial Independence in the Israeli Judiciary,” German Law Journal 24, no. 8 (2023): 1449–1468; Suzy Navot, Mordechai Kremnitzer, Guy Lurie, Amir Fuchs, and Sapir Paz, Amendment to Cancel the Reasonableness Clause: The Overall Picture—A Comparative Discussion of Democracy in Retreat (Israel Democracy Institute, 2023), 24–25, https://www.idi.org.il/media/22861/amendment-to-canceling-reasonableness-overall-picture.pdf.
[2] See: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018), 77–87.
[3] See, for example: Anna Lührmann & Staffan I. Lindberg, “A Third Wave of Autocratization is Here: What is New About It?”, Democratization 26 (2019): 1095–1113.
[4] Navot et al., Amendment to Cancel the Reasonableness Clause; Christian László, “Overview of Law Enforcement in Hungary, with Special Respect to Local Level Law Enforcement,” Magyar Rendészet 4 (2017): 143–146.
[5] Stanley Bill, “Counter-Elite Populism and Civil Society in Poland: PiS’s Strategies of Elite Replacement,” East European Politics and Societies 36, no. 1 (2022), 118–140.
[6] Aron Varga, “Police Raids against Hungarian NGOs,” Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung website, September 25, 2014, https://tinyurl.com/yjw6aw4m.
[7] Human Rights Watch, “Hungary: Events of 2023,” Human Rights Watch website, https://tinyurl.com/yusav3w3; Hungarian Helsinki Committee, “Beaten to a pulp by police officers: the Strasbourg Court ordered Hungary to pay damages to our client,” Hungarian Helsinki Committee website, October 6, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/2s3pkdev. For example, see the case of an asylum-seeking minor who was returned to Serbia without his status as lacking any protection being assessed: Hungarian Helsinki Committee, “The European Court of Human Rights condemns Hungary’s inhumane refugee policy – three times in a single day,” Hungarian Helsinki Committee website, May 16, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/yynweuka.
[8] Human Rights Watch, “Hungary: Events of 2023.”
[9] Akos Keller-Alant, “Hungarian Police Accused of Abusing Powers to Arrest Critics,” Balkan Insight, May 13, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/s3vn5xtd.
[10] Keller-Alant, “Hungarian Police Accused.” See also, for example: Boldizsar Gyori, “Hungarians Protest Against New Teachers' Law, Police Violence,” Reuters, May 20, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/3zy6s96k.
[11] Sándor Ésik, “Viktor Orbán’s Newest Tool for Crushing Dissent,” Journal of Democracy, February 2024, https://tinyurl.com/mrx2a4e8.
[12] See: UK Home Office, “Turkey Country Report,” October 2004; Yavuz Cilliler, “Popular Determinant on Civil-Military Relations in Turkey,” Arab Studies Quarterly 38, no. 2 (2016): 500–520.
[13] See: Dani Rodrik, “Ergenekon and Sledgehammer: Building or Undermining the Rule of Law,” Turkish Policy Quarterly 10, no. 1 (2011): 99–109.
[14] See: Özgün E. Topak, “An Assemblage of New Authoritarian Practices in Turkey,” in New Authoritarian Practices in the Middle East and North Africa, eds. Ozgun Topak, Merouan Mekouar, and Francesco Cavatorta (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), 296; Gareth Jenkins, Between Fact And Fantasy: Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation, Silk Road Paper, August 2009, John Hopkins University Central Asia-Caucusus Institute, https://www.silkroadstudies.org/resources/pdf/SilkRoadPapers/2009_08_SRP_Jenkins_Turkey-Ergenekon.pdf.
[15] Topak, “An Assemblage”; Aysuda Kölemen, “Illiberal Democracy or Electoral Autocracy: The Case of Turky,” in The Emergence of Illiberalism: Understanding a Global Phenomenon, eds. Boris Vormann and Michal D. Weinman (Routledge, 2020), 166.
[16] Selin Bengi Gümrükçü, “Populist Discourse, (counter-) Mobilization and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey,” Turkish Studies 23, no. 3 (2022): 407–429; Amnesty International, “Turkey accused of gross human rights violations in Gezi Park protests,” Amnesty International website, October 2, 2013, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2013/10/turkey-accused-gross-human-rights-violations-gezi-park-protests/.
[17] Topak, “An Assemblage,” 311–312.
[18] See, for example: Topak, “An Assemblage”; Mert Arslanalp and T. Deniz Erkmen, “Repression without Exception: A Study of Protest Bans during Turkey’s State of Emergency (2016-2018),” South European Society and Politics 25, no. 1 (2020): 99–125; Altan v. Turkey, application no. 12778/17, September 9, 2019.
[19] Allan R. Brewer-Carias, “The Collapse of the Rule of Law in Venezuela 1999-2019,” NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 52 (2020): 741.
[20] Laura Gamboa, Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies against the Erosion of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2022), chapter 4.
[21] Gamboa, Resisting Backsliding.
[22] Wolfgang Muno and Héctor Briceño, “Autocratization and Public Administration: The Revolutionary-Populist Regime in Venezuela in Comparative Perspective,” Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration 45, no. 1 (2023): 73–92.
[23] Brewer-Carias, “Collapse of the Rule of Law,” 752–753.
[24] See, for example: Javier Corrales, “The Authoritarian Resurgence: Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2 (2015): 37–51; Ynet, “’War for Democracy’: Venezuela on Fire After ‘Election Steal,’ Protesters Killed, July 30, 2024, https://tinyurl.com/2bujxa59; Tom Phillips, “‘Fierce repression’ of Venezuela election protests must end, UN rights team says,” Guardian, August 13, 2024, https://tinyurl.com/3ux4ymen.
[25] See, for example: Muno and Briceño, “Autocratization and Public Administration.”
[26] Michael W. Bauer et al., eds., Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration: How Populists in Government Transform State Bureaucracies (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 106–107.
[27] Bill, “Counter-Elite Populism and Civil Society in Poland.”
[28] Ryszard Bełdzikowski, “Ethics and Pathology in the Polish Police—Professional and Political Aspects,” Scientific Journal of Bielsko-Biala School of Finance and Law 20, no. 2 (2016): 56–82.
[29] Grzegorz Makowski, Laying the groundwork for “grand corruption”: The Polish government’s anti-corruption activities in 2015–2019, Stefan Batory Foundation, 2020, 38–39, https://www.batory.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Laying-the-groundwork-for-Grand-Corruption_ENG.pdf.
[30] CPJ: Committee to Protect Journalists, “CPJ urges swift probe into Polish police over forcible removal of journalist from protest,” July 21, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/2vdncf97.
[31] Agata Pyka, “Journalist convicted of attacking police while covering Polish abortion protests acquitted on appeal,” Notes From Poland, October 31, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/mw6v7nar.
[32] Daniel Tilles, “Clashes at abortion protest in Warsaw as police use tear gas and force against demonstrators, Notes From Poland, November 19, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/6mvyxvrc.
[33] Jaroslav Lukiv, “Poland’s top army generals quit ahead of key elections,” BBC, October 10, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/5f2y6uma.
[34] Alicja Ptak, “New Polish government stops police covering faces and acting as ‘security agency’ for Kaczyński,” Notes From Poland, December 30, 2023, https://tinyurl.com/43rbcxk9.
[35] Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die.
[36] On the role of the opposition, the media, and civil society in defending democratic rule, see, for example: Melis G. Laebens and Anna Lührmann, “What Halts Democratic Erosion? The Changing Role of Accountability,” Democratization 28, no. 5 (2021): 908–928.
[37] András Sajó, Ruling by Cheating: Governance in Illiberal Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
[38] Sajó, Ruling by Cheating.
[39] This is despite the fact that the actual use of force, at least during certain stages, is relatively cautious, due to the dangers posed to the rulers from openly using excessive physical force. For more on these dangers, see, for example, Laebens and Lührmann, “What Halts Democratic Erosion?”, particularly pages 97–98; Gamboa, Resisting Backsliding.