Democratic backsliding has become a defining feature of global politics in recent decades. While headlines often focus on constitutional overhauls, judicial packing or assaults on the media, this report demonstrates that one of the most effective and least visible tools for eroding democracy is the manipulation of parliamentary procedure. Rules governing how parliaments set agendas, allocate time, discipline members and channel legislation are not neutral or merely technical. They are the infrastructure through which power is exercised, contested and legitimated.

Agenda-setting powers can privilege government bills and bury opposition initiatives; time rules can accelerate, truncate or suffocate debate; and disciplinary measures can be deployed to silence dissent. While these capacities exist in all legislatures, they are particularly attractive to would-be autocrats because they offer a powerful yet obscure means to undermine democratic institutions, aggrandize power and tilt the electoral playing field. Procedural tweaks often attract little public scrutiny, fall outside the expertise of most observers and incur lower political costs than overt constitutional changes.

Yet designing procedures resistant to abuse is fraught with difficulty. This report identifies several recurring dilemmas. Legislatures generally allow the majority to write their own rules and select their referees, creating obvious conflicts of interest. Presiding officers such as speakers exercise broad discretion, but over-codification can be equally problematic, pushing decisions into opaque ‘back rooms’. Opposition rights must be protected, but too much latitude enables obstruction that can justify majoritarian clampdowns. And across all these dimensions lies the perennial problem of motive: rules intended for efficiency or accountability can be repurposed for partisan advantage. These tensions mean that no procedural system is airtight; every design embodies trade-offs between efficiency, flexibility, inclusivity and resilience.