A Review of the Main Steps to Weaken Democracy in Israel - English Summary of 2025

This document presents an overview of the key steps taken by the government, coalition and other actors to weaken Israeli democracy in 2025. The document is based, among other things, on periodic reviews that we conducted over the past year, which highlighted the escalation of the steps taken to weaken democracy.¹

The document reviews the main actions advanced by the government and the coalition to weaken democracy in six main arenas: (1) undermining the independence of the judicial system; (2) eroding the rule of law and weakening the institution of the Legal Advisor to the Government; (3) politicization of the Israel Police and the civil service; (4) violations of basic rights; (5) weakening of the free press, civil society, and academia; and (6) potentially undermining electoral integrity. Each of these arenas saw significant steps taken this year through legislation, government decisions, and administrative measures, some of which have already had tangible effects.

The patterns of action described in this review continue to align with findings in the scholarly literature on democratic backsliding. Numerous studies have found that democracies rarely collapse suddenly but rather are gradually eroded over time. Various scholars have identified the similarities characteristic of democratic erosion,² and observed that they tend to progress along several parallel paths: erosion of the competitiveness and fairness of elections; systematic weakening of the rule of law, particularly of the judiciary; the restriction and silencing of independent media; and the restrictions on the civil society’s ability to operate.

According to a growing body of scholarly knowledge, these actions do not occur randomly, but rather, they are intertwined. They result in a cumulative erosion of the checks and balances within a democracy and pave the way for political actors to take control of state institutions.³ The research shows that democratic backsliding typically occurs through legal and constitutional changes that provide a democratic façade for the dismantling of democratic structures. This often occurs alongside the capture of state institutions, which enables the practical implementation of this process.⁴ Academic studies have also highlighted the two-way relationship between democratic backsliding and states of emergency: emergencies exacerbate the deterioration of democracy, while in countries experiencing democratic backsliding, leaders are more likely to exploit emergency situations extensively.⁵

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1. Anat Thon Ashkenazy and Daphne Benvenisty, "Review No. 8: The Government and the Coalition Are Urgently Advancing a Series of Moves That Dramatically Harm Israeli Democracy,“ Israel Democracy Institute website, April 6, 2025; Anat Thon Ashkenazy and Daphne Benvenisty, "Review No. 9: The Main Steps to Weaken Democracy During the Summer Session of the Knesset," Israel Democracy Institute website, July 23, 2025.
   
   
2. See, for example: Kim Lane Scheppele, “Autocratic Legalism,” University of Chicago Law Review 85, 2 (2018): 545; Rosalind Dixon and David Landau, Abusive Constitutional Borrowing: Legal Globalization and the Subversion of Liberal Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2021).
   
   
3. Thomas Carothers and McKenzie Carrier, Democratic Recovery After Significant Backsliding: Emergent Lessons (Carnegie Endowment, 2025); Anna Luhrmann and Staffan Lindberg, “A Third Wave of Autocratization is Here: What is New About It?” Democratization 26, no. 7 (2019): 1095.
   
   
4. See, for example: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Routledge, 2018), 78-81.
   
   
5. Nadav Dagan and Daphne Benvenisty, “Autocratization and Emergencies in a Comparative Perspective,” Israel Democracy Institute, awaiting publication; Anna Lührmann and Bryan Rooney, “Autocratization by Decree: States of Emergency and Democratic Decline,” Comparative Politics 53, 4 (2021): 617.