The Courts’ Gambit against Acts of Tiny Autocratization

Some democracies are more resilient to democratic recession than others, but recent events have taught us that no democracy is entirely safe from it. The literature on democratic defence and democratic resilience has largely focussed on developments and sequencing in paradigmatic cases, such as Hungary and Poland, but the question remains how to pinpoint the start of democratic recession – also in democracies that appear to be consolidated. Specifically, when it comes to incumbent-led democratic recession, it is often unclear when and how democratic recession starts. This paper contributes to the debate in two ways. Firstly, it introduces the concept of ‘tiny autocratization’ as a way to understand the first instances of democratic recession. Acts of tiny autocratization are defined by their high ambiguity and seemingly low impact on the democratic order. However, when they go unchallenged they can add up to have huge long-term negative consequences for democracy. I argue that acts of tiny autocratization are part and parcel of everyday political decision-making in democracy, and consequently that any democracy is susceptible to these first instances of democratic recession. Because of its technical, procedural, and ambiguous nature, tiny autocratization is often recognized only by specialized elites: legal experts (both inside and outside government) and judges. Secondly, therefore, I use elite-interviews and developmental vignette scenarios to investigate when these specialized elites are capable of recognizing (tiny) autocratization within their government. Subsequently, I show under which circumstances they are willing to counter it and stand-up against the incumbent to defend democracy.