El Salvador is often portrayed as a rare success story in Latin America. Under President Nayib Bukele, the country has experienced a dramatic drop in homicide rates and a renewed sense of security after decades of gang violence. Bukele’s popularity reflects this transformation, as many Salvadorans see him as the first leader in years to restore public order. Yet when viewed through the lens of democratic erosion, El Salvador’s trajectory represents something far more troubling than a crime policy breakthrough. Instead, it illustrates how modern democracies can backslide gradually through institutional manipulation rather than coups. My argument is that El Salvador’s democratic backsliding under Bukele shows how judicial capture is essential to authoritarian consolidation. By reshaping the Supreme Court and weakening judicial independence, Bukele has dismantled one of the most important checks on executive authority. This has created an environment where abuses of power and allegations of corruption can persist under the facade of legality.
Why Courts Matter: Democracy Depends on Accountability
Courts are essential to liberal democracy because they enforce constitutional boundaries and protect civil liberties. A functioning judiciary provides horizontal accountability by ensuring the executive cannot govern without limits. When courts are independent, they can challenge illegal policies, investigate corruption, and defend the rights of political opponents and journalists. However, when courts are captured by the executive, they no longer act as neutral referees. They become political tools. When judicial institutions lose autonomy, democracy shifts away from the rule of law into a system where the controller can pursue any legal action that fits their agenda while not pursuing others.
Judicial Capture in El Salvador
Political scientist Mneesha Gellman argues that El Salvador experienced rapid democratic backsliding between 2019 and 2022 and no longer meets the benchmark of liberal democracy, including press freedom, rule of law, and basic human rights protections. Under President Nayib Bukele, state institutions have been reshaped to weaken checks and balances, making judicial capture a central driver of democratic decline. In 2021, Bukele’s allies in Congress removed and replaced Supreme Court judges and the attorney general, a move widely condemned as unconstitutional. As one critic noted, “ the Assembly violated El Salvador’s democratic system by filling up the vacant positions through nominations, without calling for public vote, as stated in the Country’s Constitution.” With the judiciary aligned with the executive, courts no longer act as a check on power but instead legitimize government actions. This reflects Ozan Varol’s concept of stealth authoritarianism, where leaders use seemingly legal reforms and institutions to undermine democracy from within. Rather than eliminating democratic structures, Bukele has restructured them to serve his rule while maintaining the appearance of legality.
Corruption Becomes Protected When Courts Lose Independence
Judicial capture has consequences beyond politics as it enables corruption. When prosecutors and courts are politically aligned with the executive, corruption investigations can be delayed, dismissed, or never pursued at all. This removes one of the most important mechanisms through which democratic systems discipline leaders. A recent example is the freezing of a money laundering investigation reportedly connected to Bukele. While allegations alone do not prove guilt, the political significance lies in the lack of independent follow-through. According to El Pais, reports have suggested that Bukele and his family may have received approximately $3.3 million tied to Venezuelan oil-linked networks. If true, this would represent serious misconduct. But more importantly, the stalling of the investigation reflects the deeper problem which is that captured legal institutions cannot credibly investigate those in power. This demonstrates a key insight from our course: democratic erosion often transforms legal systems into shields for incumbents rather than tools of accountability. Corruption becomes politically protected, and the law becomes a mechanism of control rather than justice. Corruption also provides an incentive for authoritarian leaders to stay in office creating a vicious cycle.
The Emergency Power Increases the Risks of Judicial Capture
Judicial capture is even more dangerous in El Salvador because Bukele’s anti-gang strategy relies heavily on emergency powers. The ongoing state of exception has enabled mass arrests and weakened due process protections. These measures are popular among many Salvadorans because they appear to deliver immediate security. Also as a result of the decline in violence we have seen a boost in tourism as “ El Salvador welcomed 3.9 million tourists in 2024,” which was a high from previous years. However, as Gellman notes, the constant emergency power has effectively become normalized in El Salvador. When courts are not independent, there is no institutional safeguard preventing emergency measures from being used against journalists, opposition figures, or civil society. This creates a political environment where executive power expands without meaningful oversight.
Isn’t Bukele just Responding to Public Demand?
Supporters of Bukele argue that his policies are justified because El Salvador was facing an extraordinary crisis of violence. From this perspective, emergency measures and institutional restructuring may appear necessary to restore stability. But leaders often justify the weakening of democratic checks as necessary for security. Yet when courts and accountability institutions are dismantled, citizens lose long-term protections. A government that can arrest criminals without oversight can also arrest political opponents without oversight. In other words, democracy cannot survive if citizens trade away institutional accountability for short-term results.
El Salvador’s democratic erosion highlights a central lesson in democracy as it does not always end with tanks in the streets. It often ends through the slow capture of institutions. Bukele’s reshaping of the judiciary has weakened one of the most important constraints on executive power, allowing emergency governance to become permanent and corruption allegations to become increasingly difficult to investigate. Through the frameworks of executive aggrandizement, stealth authoritarianism, and democratic guardrail collapse, El Salvador illustrates how judicial independence is not simply a legal principle, it is the foundation of democratic survival.
Hi Amy!
I had the great pleasure to read your blog post about El Salvador! As a student who doesn’t have much knowledge about El Salvador, it was a great opportunity to get to know the political background and current status of this country. I personally thought your argument about judicial capture as the foundation of democratic erosion was very convincing, especially in how you tied it to both corruption protection and the normalization of emergency powers. The example of the stalled money laundering investigation effectively illustrated how weakened judicial independence affects accountability in practice. One thing I am curious about is whether public support for Bukele might actually reinforce this process. If citizens prioritize security over institutional checks, could that make judicial capture even more difficult to reverse?