“Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: Distinguishing Democrats from Autocrats in a World of Backsliding”

New autocrats these days comes to power in (more or less) free and fair elections.  They then change the legal rules to ensure that the constraints under which they should constitutionally govern are loosened and they alter the election laws to ensure that they cannot be removed from power.   The fact that all of this occurs by law often fools the critics.   In this paper, I discuss how to recognize the danger signals of creeping autocracy by deconstructing some of the typical legal moves that creeping autocracy takes.