Democracies rarely die in dramatic coups anymore. They erode through the systematic exploitation of their own rules—or rather, through the gaps where rules should have been. The most sophisticated democratic backsliding of our era occurs not by breaking constitutions but by reading them with malicious literalism.

This pattern reveals a fundamental design flaw in many democratic systems: they were built assuming good-faith actors would occupy positions of power. Constitutional framers relied on norms, conventions, and shared understandings to fill the spaces between written rules. When leaders arrive who view these gaps not as spaces for restraint but as opportunities for expansion, the architecture begins to buckle.

Understanding democratic erosion as a design problem—not merely a political one—opens different analytical and remedial possibilities. It shifts attention from the character of individual leaders to the structural vulnerabilities they exploit. More importantly, it suggests that institutional hardening, not just political mobilization, constitutes essential democratic maintenance. The autocratic playbook has become remarkably consistent across contexts. Identifying its common moves allows for anticipatory institutional design that closes vulnerabilities before they're tested.

Every constitution contains silences—areas where framers either couldn't anticipate future challenges or deliberately left ambiguity for future generations to resolve. These gaps become attack surfaces for leaders seeking to consolidate power. Emergency powers represent perhaps the most consistently exploited ambiguity, with vague triggering conditions and undefined temporal limits creating spaces for extended executive authority.

Appointment powers constitute another critical vulnerability zone. Many constitutions grant executives authority to appoint key officials—judges, electoral commissioners, prosecutors—without specifying what happens when nominations are blocked or when officials refuse to leave. Hungary's systematic court-packing exploited precisely this ambiguity, expanding the constitutional court while lowering retirement ages to create appointment opportunities.

The timing of institutional actions represents a frequently overlooked gap. Constitutions typically specify what institutions can do without specifying when they must act. This enables strategic delay—as when senates refuse to consider judicial nominations—or strategic acceleration, as when legislatures rush through constitutional amendments before opposition can mobilize.

Hardening strategies for these gaps require uncomfortable specificity. Emergency powers need defined triggering thresholds, mandatory sunset provisions, and legislative renewal requirements with supermajority escalation over time. Appointment authorities require default mechanisms—perhaps judicial council nominations or automatic confirmation after defined periods—that prevent vacancy manipulation.

The deeper challenge lies in anticipating gaps that haven't yet been exploited. This requires what might be called adversarial constitutional design: systematically asking how a bad-faith actor would read each provision and designing redundant constraints accordingly. Democratic constitutions have traditionally been written by those who imagine themselves governing under them. They should also be stress-tested by imagining enemies governing under them.

Takeaway

Constitutional silences aren't neutral spaces waiting for good-faith interpretation—they're vulnerabilities waiting for exploitation. Design for adversaries, not allies.

Many democracies operate through a two-tier system: formal rules that define powers and informal norms that constrain their exercise. The U.S. Congress could technically refuse to raise the debt ceiling and trigger default; the norm of eventual resolution prevented this for decades. British prime ministers could technically refuse to resign after losing confidence votes; convention made this unthinkable. When norms do the work of rules, institutional vulnerability compounds.

This misalignment creates what scholars call constitutional hardball—actions that are technically legal but violate established expectations of restraint. The problem isn't that such actions break rules but that they reveal the rules were never there. What looked like institutional solidity was actually normative consensus masquerading as structural constraint.

Norm erosion typically follows a predictable pattern. Initial violations are framed as exceptional responses to extraordinary circumstances. Each subsequent violation references previous ones as precedent, gradually normalizing what was previously unthinkable. The Overton window of acceptable institutional behavior shifts through accumulated transgression.

Institutionalization remedies require converting implicit norms into explicit rules—a process that often generates fierce resistance. Those who benefit from current arrangements prefer the flexibility of norms; those who've relied on norms for protection recognize that codification creates its own vulnerabilities. Yet the asymmetry of norm-dependence means that institutionalization generally favors democratic preservation: bad-faith actors exploit flexibility, while good-faith actors accept constraint.

The timing of institutionalization matters critically. Norms are easiest to codify before they're violated—when consensus still exists about their content and binding character. After violation, codification becomes politically charged, appearing to target specific actors rather than establish general principles. This suggests that democratic maintenance requires proactive institutionalization during periods of relative stability, not reactive rule-making during crisis.

Takeaway

Norms that feel like rules aren't rules. Democracies that rely on restraint without encoding it are one norm-violating leader away from discovering their actual institutional architecture.

Democratic backsliding follows recognizable institutional sequences, not random attacks on governance. Understanding these sequences allows identification of critical intervention points—moments when resistance might prevent cascade effects. The typical capture sequence begins with institutions that enable further capture: courts and electoral commissions come first because controlling them enables controlling everything else.

Court capture provides legitimation cover for subsequent moves. Once judicial review is neutralized—through packing, jurisdiction-stripping, or selective enforcement—constitutional constraints lose their enforcement mechanism. Electoral commission capture ensures that even if public opposition grows, it cannot translate into electoral consequences. These institutions are targeted first precisely because they protect everything else.

The second wave typically targets information ecosystems. Media regulatory bodies, public broadcasters, and transparency mechanisms come under pressure once judicial protection weakens. This stage aims not at absolute control but at sufficient confusion—creating enough alternative narratives that truth becomes contested and accountability becomes difficult. Epistemic corruption enables further institutional erosion by preventing coordinated opposition.

Civil society and opposition parties face pressure in the third wave, but often through formally legal mechanisms—tax investigations, regulatory enforcement, application of previously dormant laws. By this stage, courts provide no remedy, information environments are polluted, and electoral paths appear closed. The sequence creates self-reinforcing capture dynamics.

Critical intervention points exist primarily in the early sequence stages. Once courts are captured, the constitutional immune system is compromised. This suggests that judicial independence protections require the highest institutional hardening priority: difficult-to-change supermajority requirements for court composition, fixed terms that don't align with electoral cycles, and appointment mechanisms that prevent single-party control. Protecting the protectors must come first.

Takeaway

Autocrats capture courts and electoral commissions first because these institutions protect everything else. Democratic defense must prioritize the institutions that enable all other resistance.

Democratic erosion by design reveals an uncomfortable truth: many democratic systems were built for better actors than they now face. The institutional architecture assumed shared commitment to democratic norms, treating good faith as a background condition rather than a variable requiring structural support.

This diagnosis points toward institutional hardening as democratic maintenance—closing constitutional gaps, codifying informal norms, and prioritizing protection of the institutions that protect everything else. Such work lacks the drama of political mobilization but may prove more durable. Movements come and go; well-designed institutions persist.

The autocratic playbook has become legible. Its consistency across contexts offers opportunity: vulnerabilities identified in one democracy can inform preventive design in others. Democratic institutional design must become adversarial, stress-testing structures against bad-faith interpretation. Building for enemies, not just friends, may be democracy's necessary next evolution.