How to Tackle Crime and Subvert Democracy: Lessons from the "World's Coolest Dictator"

Walk around the Soyapango Central Market in Soyapango, El Salvador today and you’ll find an area bustling with people sifting through clothes, fruit stands, and pupuserias. Although a trip here may feel reassuringly safe now, 10,000 Salvadoran security forces surrounded the city fewer than two years ago to tackle the rampant gang crime for which Soyapango was once infamously known. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele (who calls himself the “World’s Coolest Dictator” and a “Philosopher King”) announced the blockade of this San Salvador satellite city on X (then Twitter) on December 3, 2022 with a video of armed soldiers preparing to surround the city to the tune of dramatic music and footage as if it were a trailer for an upcoming action movie.

These tough-on-crime policies are why Bukele has one of the world’s highest approval ratings for a national leader. Since the end of its 12-year civil war in 1992, El Salvador has suffered from pervasive gang violence. In 2015, El Salvador reached a homicide rate of 104 per 100,000 people, the highest in the world outside of a warzone. Bukele ascended to the presidency in 2019 and vowed to restore safety to El Salvador. After a series of drastic measures against the gangs—state militarization, mass incarcerations, and a massive new prison, just to name a few—in January 2024 the government claimed that the country’s homicide rate fell to 2.4 per 100,000, supposedly making it the second-lowest in the Americas after Canada.

Yet throughout the process of mass arrests (approximately over 1% of the Salvadoran population was behind bars in September 2023), Bukele has steadily eroded the democratic process in his country, with critics often citing court packing and widespread militarization as some of their main concerns. Freedom House says El Salvador’s freedom declined more than any country in the Americas and in all but seven of the 210 countries and territories it has tracked over the past 10 years. This goes without mentioning the severe human rights violations that have been reported in Salvadoran prisons.

Nevertheless, Bukele still largely maintains the support of voters (having won reelection in February 2024 with nearly 85% of the vote) and continues to lead El Salvador in a democratic backslide even as he makes significant strides in restoring safety. The draws and consequences of the Bukele model are relevant for countries with aspiring authoritarians waiting for the right opportunity to subvert democracy. Bukele offers three textbook lessons to aspiring autocrats on how to sustain competitive authoritarianism, which may appear to have at least temporarily reduced crime, but still leave dire implications for the future health of global democracies.

Lesson One: Tap Into Voters’ Deepest Fears

Winning significant voter support can be achieved by addressing (or at least claiming to address) voters’ most pressing fears about current society. In El Salvador for many years, crime and gang violence created a pervasive sense of fear that became the main target of Bukele’s campaign. Reducing these ills is a noble goal. However, agreeable goals can serve as the foundation for more insidious motives as well: claiming to take on crime can be a justification for instituting a police state, for example. Bukele realized this and made his war on gangs a significant aspect of his persona.

There are certain measures that by themselves are not detrimental to democracy, such as Bukele’s Territorial Control Plan. The Plan boosts the national police presence and funds social programs that would divert youth away from gangs. Even drastic measures such as blockading Soyapango to root out gangs does not necessarily challenge long-term democratic health. Single measures alone, coupled with checks to defend civil liberties, can fight crime while preserving democracy.

However, the Plan has led to certain outcomes that challenge democracy in El Salvador. Bukele demanded in February 2020 that the Salvadoran Congress approve a loan to fund military and law enforcement modernization. After citing an obscure article of the Salvadoran constitution that requires all lawmakers to convene, he entered the Assembly and sat in the President of the Assembly’s seat to demand that lawmakers approve the loan. Soldiers accompanied him in the room for a scene more common in tinpot dictatorships than an established democracy. Although there were some protests, most of the Salvadoran public continues to applaud Bukele for his demonstrated willingness to fight gangs even if it has come at the expense of a clear separation of powers.

Such actions, part of the recent broader militarization of this Central American democracy, serve to improve approval ratings and solidify Bukele’s belief that he has won the public’s support in his mandate to reform the country as a means of a war on gangs. If he does everything in the name of defeating MS-13 and their ilk, Bukele can develop a type of competitive authoritarianism that places his leadership at the heart of a safe, functioning country. It is Bukele that sets the boundaries for democracy, not vice versa.

Moreover, justifying authoritarianism as a means of assuaging constituents’ fears of gang crime is a model that has broad appeal across other Latin American countries that suffer from security and corruption issues. The President of Costa Rica admiringly referred to El Salvador as a model for fighting crime, while Honduran President Xiomara Castro similarly militarized prisons and instituted a state of emergency to take on Honduran criminals. Although in theory these actions could make immediate, helpful changes to a country’s security, they all lack a long-term strategy and weaken the democratic guardrails for potentially short-term safety.

Lesson Two: Control the Courts

Another textbook step that many authoritarians take to chip away at democratic foundations is gaining control of the court to legitimize their actions. In May 2021, El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly (where Bukele’s party and his allies maintained a majority) fired five judges from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice and shortly after approved replacements ostensibly more friendly to Bukele and his policies. Although the reason cited for their terminations was the judges’ apparent obstruction to the Salvadoran government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the opposition claimed that it was merely a means for Bukele to expand his power and pass his tough-on-crime policies more easily.

While the clear diminution of separation of powers was condemned from Washington to the UN, El Salvador suffered no immediate diplomatic consequences for this change. The Constitutional Court went on to drastically reinterpret the Salvadoran Constitution in favor of Bukele. The Constitution clearly states that no president can run for a consecutive term, but the new Constitutional Court redefined the constitutional interpretation and accepted Bukele’s reelection bid in November 2023. It was a blatant example of manipulating another branch of government to advance the interests of an authoritarian regime.

Bukele made his reelection an essential component of his war on gangs. Since this is one of voters’ main concerns, Bukele took advantage of his popularity to institute this change in the name of fighting crime. It is the most concerning of the examples of democratic backsliding that have occurred in El Salvador since it is the most crucial step to an aspiring autocrat’s survival. Neutralizing the courts buys authoritarians more time to defend their platforms at the very least; at best, it warps legal texts to uphold mandates that threaten the political process and civil liberties. The lack of widespread domestic outrage against the President’s clear challenge of constitutional law indicates that with popular support, an authoritarian can wield more influence in shaping the country to their vision.

Lesson Three: Don’t Step on Other Countries’ Toes

While Bukele has certainly made international headlines for his eccentric character and state of emergency, he has largely avoided confrontation with foreign countries. Such a strategy has been crucial in allowing his pet projects to continue without interference from other countries in the world or international forums such as the UN.

Consider Daniel Noboa, who as President of Ecuador has lauded Bukele and promised a similar tough-on-crime approach to gang violence in his country (but so far without Bukele-style democratic backsliding). While Ecuador may have been spared of the harshest of condemnations from civil liberty watchdogs and other countries for its mass incarceration and militarization, Noboa was put under the spotlight for overseeing the raid of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador in April 2024. Mexico called the raid a violation of its sovereignty; the Organization of American States (OAS) was unified in its condemnation of Ecuador (interestingly, the only OAS member state that abstained from voting to condemn Ecuador was El Salvador). Such a brazen challenge to international law is not inconceivable in El Salvador, but Bukele has not done anything that might infuriate another country and draw unnecessary attention.

While the nature of gang crime in El Salvador does not necessarily involve challenging other countries’ sovereignty, Bukele has so far avoided a major diplomatic crisis. Indeed, NGOs have sounded the alarm on reported human rights abuses and criticized the backsliding within El Salvador. The UN and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have offered their own condemnations of the degradation of rule of law and human rights violations, but their condemnations have not translated into any diplomatic consequence for Bukele. The messaging is clear: while the rest of the world focuses on other pressing issues, Bukele can be left to his own devices if he doesn’t make any significant noise in the international community.

Bringing a newfound sense of safety to El Salvador may even benefit major powers’ strategic interests. For China, safety may open new opportunities for investment and infrastructure projects: a Chinese-funded library recently opened in San Salvador, which is unlikely to be the last project. Washington also silently benefits from the increased stability since it mitigates the urgent need for Salvadorans to flee to the U.S., reducing the influx of asylum-seeking migrants at its southern border. Even if it comes at the expense of rule of law, Washington’s criticisms of decaying rule of law in El Salvador have not amounted to any practical consequence for Bukele. This will embolden authoritarians to simply avoid confrontations with other countries to preserve their autocratic rule.

Implications of the Bukele Model

El Salvador is a small country where the particularly bloody history of gang violence has proven to be a testing ground for how to overwhelm and destroy criminal gangs. It is also now a testing ground for how to damage democracy. While the unique circumstances of El Salvador make it impossible to completely replicate the Bukele model abroad, other authoritarians can learn to adapt the main tenets of his model and apply them with their own distinctive flavors.

Challenging the Bukele model is not necessarily a critique of taking a stand against violent criminals; it is more of a critique of Bukele’s opportunistic behavior to increase presidential authority. It is the fact that Bukele and his supporters in the National Legislature and courts have validated his long-term damage to Salvadoran democracy. If an even more authoritarian president is down the line, Bukele has set up a playbook for how to dismantle Salvadoran democracy.

Perhaps Bukele’s popular support is proof that he has changed his country for the better. It is of the utmost importance to support Salvadorans in this new era of relative safety and avoid returning to past violence. But questions remain about the day after: the day after the Territorial Control Plan and state of emergency (which has been continuously renewed since 2022), and the day after Bukele. He is yet to establish a long-term solution to control crime without a highly militarized state and significant curbs on civil and political freedoms. When that day comes, Salvadorans will have to decide if what is happening now is truly sustainable. They will also have to decide whether the sacrifice of their freedom is valid. It will always be easier to lose civil and political liberties than to take them back.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent those of any previous or current employers, the editorial body of SIPR, the Freeman Spogili Institute, or Stanford University.