This blog is part of the series “Shrinking Spaces – Creating Spaces” which is hosted by the (Un-)Making Democracy program at Polis180.
Authoritarian regimes increasingly replace overt repression with legal control. By weaponizing laws to restrict NGOs, media, and civic activism, governments from Moscow to Budapest and Tbilisi transform rule of law into rule by law. This “legal authoritarianism” diffuses across borders, revealing how autocrats learn from each other to silence dissent while creating a façade of legality.
A blog post by Lena Herholz
Repression Under the Guise of Law
Brutal crackdowns are no longer the primary weapon of authoritarian regimes. While physical violence, mass arrests, and open brutality still occur and remain a central pillar of coercive power in many contexts, authoritarians increasingly supplement and, in some cases, strategically replace overt repression with legal control. This takes the form of legal repression, understood as the systematic curtailment of fundamental rights, such as the freedoms of assembly, association, and expression, through laws, regulations, and bureaucratic procedures. Across the globe, civic space is being shrunk by legal codes and clauses: “In contemporary authoritarian regimes, the use of the law for repressive ends, defined as the subordination of the law to politics, results in ‘rule by law’ as opposed to ‘rule of law.’ ” State repression and violence is riskier today, in a globalized world: open human rights violations are harder to conceal and can trigger economic costs, investor backlash, diplomatic pressure, and reputational damage. Legal suppression, by contrast, is far more insidious. On the one hand, it narrows democratic space without visible violence, stifling dissent through codified administrative coercion. On the other hand, it provides the regime with an appearance of legality and justification, both domestically and internationally, for violent repressive measures against civil society. In doing so, critical voices are defamed, marginalized, or criminalized, often long before they gain mass support.
Legal Repression in Europe: Hungary, Slovakia, Georgia
In Hungary, the right-wing nationalist government under Viktor Orbán demonstrates this approach clearly, as it pushes new legislation to further restrict NGOs. The bill, almost certain to pass given the government’s parliamentary majority, would create a blacklist of NGOs with foreign funding, revoke their tax benefits, and impose heavy fines for unauthorized fund transfers. Decisions on who lands on the blacklist will rest with a “Sovereignty Protection” authority established in 2024, using criteria that range from criticizing the government to questioning Hungary’s national identity, Christian culture, or its “democracy”. This move further expands Orbán’s system of legal repression, as he had already taken a first step in 2017 with a law requiring NGOs receiving foreign funding to be labeled as “foreign-supported organisations.”
Hungary does not represent an isolated case. Slovakia has recently followed, as Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government passed a law requiring NGOs with foreign funding to publicly disclose their annual budgets, funding sources, donor identities, and activities. These details must be entered into a lobbying register.
Georgia offers another example. In June 2024, its parliament passed a “Transparency of Foreign Influence” law , in order to counter opposition from civil society. The law obliges NGOs and media outlets to register as “foreign-funded” and grants authorities extensive power to monitor them. Penalties range from fines to possible closure. Many Georgians call it a “Russian law,” referring to Russia’s 2012 “Foreign Agent Law”.
Authoritarian Learning in Action
The similarity between these laws is no coincidence. Legislative initiatives in Hungary, Slovakia, and Georgia reflect a broader trend: the strategic weakening of critical voices through legal tools. These measures are not creative, independent, or coincidentally parallel “masterstrokes” by their leaders. Their timing, near-identical provisions, and political ties between authoritarian-leaning governments suggest one thing: autocrats learn from each other. They observe which instruments are effective elsewhere and adapt them to their own contexts, a process researchers describe as authoritarian learning or diffusion of authoritarian practices.
From Moscow with Laws: Russia as a Blueprint
When it comes to “foreign agent” laws, governments are drawing from a repertoire, which was established in Russia and now is embedded in authoritarian playbooks globally. Following the “colour revolutions” in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005), the Kremlin identified pro-democracy, foreign-funded NGOs as a major threat to regime survival.
Starting in 2004, Russia introduced a series of restrictive laws targeting civil society. The 2006 NGO law allowed authorities to deny registration on vague grounds and prohibited NGOs founded by foreigners. Politically active NGOs could no longer receive foreign funding, crippling many groups critical of the regime. In 2012, the “Foreign Agent Law” branded NGOs with foreign funding and political activities as “foreign agents”. It was later expanded to include media outlets, individuals, and even people with no proven foreign ties. The consequences ranged from bureaucratic harassment to professional bans, asset seizures, and imprisonment. Also in 2012, the “Dima Yakovlev Law” allowed the suspension of NGOs with US funding or alleged “anti-Russian activities”. In 2015, the “Undesirable Organizations Law” enabled implementing criminal measures against international civil society actors. Over time, this system of legalistic repression, pioneered by Russia, has become a blueprint for others.
The Shift from Rule of Law to Rule by Law
The lesson from Georgia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Russia is clear: the rollback of democratic freedoms is not unfolding as a series of isolated national setbacks, but as a cross-border cascade in which legal repression travels, mutates, and gains momentum. What began in Russia, born out of fear of “colour revolutions” and designed to pre-empt mass mobilization, has now become a template for others. The erosion of rights is increasingly driven through legal means. In this process, rule of law is giving way to rule by law, where legal frameworks are not designed to protect rights, but to restrict them. By criminalizing certain topics, spaces, groups, associations, or forms of expression, governments create an environment in which activism is possible only under high risk or in depoliticized form.
Unlike overt violence, which risks domestic outrage and international sanction, legal restrictions suppress dissent while preserving a façade of legitimacy at home and abroad. Authoritarian governments can claim to be acting within the law, shielding themselves from reputational damage and avoiding the sharp legitimacy costs typically associated with brute force. Further, civic participation is channelled into “safe” avenues, stripping it of its political edge. In other words, authoritarian regimes have found a way to silence opposition without provoking the kind of legitimacy crisis that overt repression often triggers.
As these measures prove effective, minimizing international backlash (at least for a time), largely neutralizing organized opposition, and preserving high levels of domestic legitimacy, they are studied, copied, and adapted. In this way, an authoritarian repertoire is consolidating within Europe, as legal and procedural restrictions are far harder to contest than overt violence. This reflects a qualitative shift: rather than continued democratisation and liberalisation (with few exceptions), the dominant trajectory now points toward autocratisation, increasingly shaped by the deliberate legal imitation of the Russian model, whose growing influence makes the underlying normative transformation unmistakable.
Lena Herholz holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Comparative Political Science from the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her research examines democracy and authoritarianism through the lens of resilience, democracy promotion, global authoritarianism, political culture, and international norms.
The Polis Blog serves as a platform at the disposal of ‘Polis180’s & ‘OpenTTN‘s members. Published comments express solely the ‘authors’ opinions and shall not be confounded with the opinions of the editors or of Polis180.
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