Politics of Legal Resistance: The strategic use of law to counter autocratization

A substantial body of research shows that abuses of law facilitate autocratization. Less is known about law and resistance. This paper asks when and how legal tactics are deployed to react to specific autocratic practices, and what effects these tactics have. I propose “politics of legal resistance” as a conceptual framework to systematize legal tactics that are applied by non-state actors to counter autocratic practices by state actors or entities, and to evaluate the effects of these tactics. Legal resistance develops according to accumulative or combined sets of tactics that include (1) domestic remedies, with constitutional justice, judicial procedures, and administrative procedures, and (2) international procedures, including petitions, individual complaints, and further quasi-judicial procedures. These tactics are identified in major realms of autocratic practices (a) political opposition, (b) civic space, and (c) structural impunity. Guatemala and Nicaragua offer contexts in which politics of legal resistance are illustrated paradigmatically, against the backdrop of further incidences of legal resistance globally. It is hypothesized that a combination of a high level of expertise of legal resisters, cumulative political costs due to further non-legal resistance, and vulnerability of the regime make legal resistance more prone to produce its intended effects. This research focus claims that without understanding the interrelation of law and politics we cannot fully capture failed or successful resistance to autocratization.