Israel’s democratic erosion has been a deliberate, step-by-step process rather than a sudden collapse. Political scientists describe what is happening as “executive aggrandizement,” where elected leaders use legal mechanisms to weaken the institutions that check their power. Netanyahu’s coalition has done exactly this — passing laws to limit the Supreme Court’s oversight abilities, restructuring the judicial selection process to give the Knesset more control over appointments, and attempting to remove the Attorney General. Each reform was framed publicly as a democratic improvement or a correction of judicial overreach, masking its true effect of consolidating executive power.

Scholars call this approach “stealth authoritarianism” — hiding anti-democratic goals inside legal and procedural tools so that the erosion of democracy is difficult to recognize or resist until significant damage is done. Israel’s case is particularly alarming because the country lacks a formal constitution, making its Supreme Court one of the few meaningful checks on government power. International democracy watchdogs have taken notice: Freedom House lowered Israel’s score, and V-Dem stripped it of its liberal democracy status in 2023. The article warns that Israel’s trajectory is a cautionary tale for democracies worldwide, illustrating how democratic backsliding increasingly happens from within existing institutions rather than through outright authoritarian takeover.

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