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The heated 2024 U.S. presidential election is frequently characterized as a choice between democracy and dictatorship, or democracy and autocracy, especially with the publication of Project 2025, the extreme, far-right playbook supposedly written for a Donald Trump or other Republican administration.

It may be surprising then, that in many examples, autocrats around the world have used institutions of democracy to consolidate and gain autocratic power.

UCLA sociology professor Cecilia Menjívar, who co-edited a recent double issue of American Behavioral Scientist for which she also co-wrote the introduction, "The Tools of Autocracy Worldwide: Authoritarian Networks, the Façade of Democracy, and Neo-Repression, with UCLA alumna and USC assistant professor of sociology Deisy Del Real, breaks down how dictators have deftly shepherded societies and political systems into autocracies worldwide.

By exploring the use of fear, the deliberate spread of misinformation, deceptive use of democratic systems, corruption of the legal system and the harnessing of hate groups, the co-editors hope to shed light on the fragility of democracy and sharpen our critical eye to the insidious threat of autocracy.

We sat down with Menjívar, the Dorothy L. Meier Social Equities Professor at UCLA, to learn more about the tools and tactics used by aspiring and actual autocratic leaders.

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