Democratic backsliding often advances not through dramatic constitutional change, but through the quiet manipulation of parliamentary procedure. This report shows how rules on agendas, debate, discipline and legislative scrutiny can be turned into tools for silencing opposition, concentrating power and weakening democratic accountability.

Drawing on comparative examples, it identifies a procedural playbook of democratic erosion and distils lessons for building more resilient parliaments. It offers a timely guide to protecting democracy where it is often most vulnerable: in the ordinary rules of legislative politics.

Six broad lessons emerge:

1. protect the rules 
2. redesign fast-track procedures 
3. target conflicts of interest
4. optimise the opposition 
5. ensure opportunities for review 
6. institutionalise civic participation.