El Salvador has been known, historically, for its high murder rate and deep-seated gang violence. However, over the past six years the country’s gang violence has decreased by 70%. But at what cost? President Nayib Bukele has taken the country by storm, campaigning for a better and safer country free of gangs and violence. Bukele’s crackdown on crime has led to greater public approval and praise from El Salvador’s citizens. Consequently, Bukele’s “war on gangs” has given the impression of safer communities throughout the country and greater approval of his policies. Despite this, the popularity of Bukele’s war on gangs has emboldened him to quietly dismantle checks on power through specific stealth authoritarian tactics to further erode democratic systems.
Stealth Authoritarian Tactics as Indicators of Erosion
Commonly, efforts to dismantle democracy are stealthy and quiet. Bukele and his administration have utilized specific tactics to manipulate electoral law, dismantle judicial review, increase surveillance laws, and discredit rule of law rhetoric. For instance, in “How Democracies Die” scholars Levitsky & Ziblatt connect these tactics to four behavioral warning signs of incumbents who use authoritarian strategies. They often reject democratic rules of the game, deny opposition legitimacy, encourage violence, and curtail civil liberties. Through the use of these tactics, administrations dismantle democratic institutions and manipulate civilian support.
Electoral Law & Judicial Review
The removal of horizontal checks on executives works to generate systematic advantages for the incumbent. As Levitsky & Ziblatt highlighted, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán used his supermajority in the legislature to rewrite the constitution. Similarly, following his first term, Bukele used his legislative majority to amend the constitution in 2021 and made it possible to run for a second term. His re-election resulted in an 84.7% majority vote and established the first two term presidency in the country. Another repeal to electoral laws followed as the administration cut legislative seats from 84 to 60, reinforcing his supermajority. In July 2025, Bukele’s administration amended the constitution once again and rid it entirely of presidential term limits. Consequently, a system with little legislative checks on executive power exists.
These constitutional amendments are possible because of Bukele’s weakening of legislative and judicial power. Ozan Varol has voiced in “Stealth Authoritarianism” that judicial institutions generate substantial changes in favor of the ruling party when the structure of the courts and appointment processes are manipulated to favor the incumbent. This is seen through strategies that reinforce anti-democratic ideals like court packing and rewriting judicial processes. For instance, throughout his first term Bukele dismantled the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ). He dismissed judges over the age of 60 along with any who had served more than 30 years, framing it as an anti-corruption measure. By removing older judges from the judiciary, the current administration has succeeded in appointing judges beneficial to Bukele’s policies.
Ultimately, Bukele’s ability to consolidate his power through judicial reforms has created unbalanced horizontal checks on executive power. The SCJ can no longer uphold laws that counters Bukele’s policies and is therefore incapable of distributing effective blocks on humanitarian rights violations. Because the judiciary is packed with loyalists, it is no longer an independent body and now directly reflects executive policies. Therefore, Bukele has manipulated the extent of his power and consolidated it through both a legislative supermajority and a judiciary of loyalist. Subsequently, he has taken steps to further erode democracy.
Rejecting Democratic Norms: Surveillance Law & Rule of Law
Oftentimes, deconstructing judicial and legislative checks reinforces the consolidation of the incumbent’s power. Ozan Varol further emphasizes, that political elites often resort to surveillance laws that are structured with the purpose of combatting organized crime and terrorism but use those laws to blackmail or discredit political opponents. Bukele has labeled a threat to democracy, gang violence, which has allowed him to critique the current institutions and manipulate surveillance of civilians by claiming that he is making institution more suitable. As a result, Bukele has jailed over 83,0000 people throughout a prolonged state of emergency. Beginning in March of 2022, any citizen found with relation to gang violence has been arrested. Many of these cases were dismissed or used to target opposition. Therefore, Bukele has retained a strong influence on the prison system through mass incarceration policies, deadly prison conditions, and attacks on opposition forces.
The opposition has been shut down through media manipulation and the removal of free assembly. For instance, over the past year some protests towards Bukele’s policies emerged. In May and September of 2025 protests voiced concerns for the prisons human rights violations. Unfortunately, the criminalization of protests ensured that multiple activists were unlawfully arrested along with opposition candidates. Despite having constitutional rights to assemble, Bukele’s state of emergency has allowed for unlawful arrests of citizens and opposition forces. Consequently, his manipulation of surveillance tactics decreases citizens ability to view his policies as anti-democratic and in turn he is able to use crime reform to block opposition.
Similarly, freedom of expression and rule of law have been slowly deteriorating in the country. Ozan Varol and other scholars have highlighted that rule of law is an indicator of stable democracy as it supports a countries’ ability to uphold political norms. These norms have been ignored under Bukele. He has incited violence in jails with unlivable conditions, made efforts to dismantle LGBTQ and indigenous people’s rights, and further removed equitable due process in court and personal autonomy for incarcerated individuals. Despite the administration demonstrating efforts to hinder personal freedoms, stealth authoritarian tactics make it difficult to identify when rule of law is abused.
As Varol further states in his work, the tactics deployed deviate between showing mechanisms in support for democracy and indirect manipulation of democratic norms. Practices that would appear repressive in an authoritarian regime often are ambiguous when the incumbent uses stealth authoritarian tactics. Because Bukele utilizes stealth authoritarian tactics in his consolidation of power, it has become difficult for both global and domestic actors to determine if policies are legitimate or abusive. Consequently, Bukele has hindered political accountability that requires transparency of credible information from the administrations and generated an ambiguous rule allowing himself to quietly dismantle checks on executive power and manipulate civilian perception.
Works Cited
Amnesty International. (2025, May 20). El Salvador: Government deepens authoritarian pattern in the face of social discontent. Retrieved from Amnesty International website: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/05/el-salvador-gobierno-profundiza-patron-autoritario-frente-al-descontento-social/
Broner, T. T. (2023, March 21). Countering El Salvador’s Democratic Backsliding. Retrieved from Human Rights Watch website: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/21/countering-el-salvadors-democratic-backsliding
DeGaugh, R. (2025, January 15). Why do voters support leaders who undermine democracy? The case of El Salvador. Retrieved from Keough School of Global Affairs website: https://keough.nd.edu/news-and-events/news/why-do-voters-support-leaders-who-undermine-democracy-the-case-of-el-salvador/
El Salvador: Baseless Charges Against Rights Defenders. (2025, September 18). Retrieved from Human Rights Watch website: https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/18/el-salvador-baseless-charges-against-rights-defenders
El Salvador: Freedom in the World 2025 Country Report | Freedom House. (2024). Retrieved from Freedom House website: https://freedomhouse.org/country/el-salvador/freedom-world/2025
El Salvador’s Democracy Is Dying. (2025, September 2). Retrieved from Human Rights Watch website: https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/02/el-salvadors-democracy-is-dying
Huntington, K. (2024, March 28). The Demise of Democracy in El Salvador. Retrieved from Political Science website: https://www.colorado.edu/polisci/2024/03/28/demise-democracy-el-salvador
Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. New York: Broadway Books.
Varol, O. (2015). Stealth Authoritarianism (pp. 1673–1742). Iowa Law Review.
You gave an excellent analysis of stealth authoritarianism and the way that people either didn’t notice or tolerated democratic erosion because life was tangibly improving for some people. However, one topic that could be explored is the effect that Bukele could have on other countries, especially those seeking carceral and punitive anti-crime measures. Alternatively, he could set an example of a potential strategy for politicians seeking to consolidate their power.
Aspirational authoritarians could see that democratic erosion may be more unnoticed or tolerated if public safety is improved through whatever means necessary, or if people’s lives improve in some other way. For example, Bukele’s erosion of due process, mass incarceration, and human rights violations while maintaining popular support shows how people can view certain abuses as a small price for them to pay for the goal, which is reduced gang violence. In a situation where the majority of people’s safety is under significant threat of gang violence, even nicknamed the “murder capital of the world,” people are vulnerable to a politician who exploits this threat for power.
Finally, the era of stealth authoritarianism makes Bukele’s approach more attractive. People looking to take inspiration from his practices may believe they won’t be held accountable for their actions, either abroad or domestically.
Hi Zoe! This post does a really good job laying out the tension at the center of Bukele’s presidency: El Salvador is undeniably safer from gang violence, but those security gains are coming at the expense of core democratic institutions.
What stands out to me the most is how Bukele has used his popularity and the promise of security to quietly push through changes that give him more and more unchecked power. As you point out, this lines up closely with what Levitsky and Ziblatt describe–modern authoritarian leaders don’t usually announce their intentions outright; they chip away at institutions slowly, in ways that look technical or even justifiable on the surface.
Your breakdown of the electoral and judicial reforms is especially strong. Changing the constitution, removing term limits, cutting legislative seats, and reshaping the Supreme Court all work together to make it harder for anyone to challenge Bukele politically. Comparing this to Orbán in Hungary helps show that these tactics aren’t unique–they’re part of a broader playbook leaders use to consolidate control while still claiming to operate within a democracy.
I agree that the continuous renewal of the state of emergency and the increase of surveillance laws is concerning to El Salvador’s democratic integrity. Additionally, I think the massive number of arrests and the suppression of protests show how “public security” can become an all-purpose justification for silencing criticism or dissidence. Once opposition is framed as criminal or dangerous, it becomes much easier for the government to get away with violating rights.
I am curious about the other implications for democracy under Bukele’s term, especially when term limits have been removed. In specific, I wonder more about the implications and context leading up to the dismantling of LGBTQ+ and indigenous people’s rights. Bukele may have been able to capitalize on pre-existing ethnic tensions, and further them, which is another common symptom of democratic backsliding. It makes sense Bukele was able to dismantle the rights of minority groups, especially under the Latin American context where the effects of colonialism remain and continue to inform existing societal and systemic issues.
Additionally, I wanted to bring up Bukele’s interesting role in American immigration and the overlap it has with the prison system he has instituted in El Salvador. The international role both the U.S. and El Salvador have picked up by allowing ICE immigrants into their jails is as intriguing as it is terrifying. Both authoritarian regimes are enforcing and promoting the behavior and values of each other, creating and establishing allyship that may make it more difficult for the international order to hold both countries accountable for their anti-democratic behavior. It’s interesting to see how a national system is now serving international interests, and allowing for more democratic backsliding to occur, and perhaps even be normalized.