Lawfare Erodes Institutional Capacity

Strategic use of litigation, selective prosecutions, and regulatory threats (‘lawfare’) functions as a tool of political control that systematically degrades an institution’s ability to recruit and retain independent experts. Over time this converts nominally neutral agencies (courts, central banks, regulators) into bodies staffed by loyalists, reducing state capacity and raising the risk of governance failure. — If lawfare is treated as a structural governance problem, democracies must design procedural safeguards (appointment rules, tenure protection, transparency requirements) to preserve independent judgment and prevent institutional capture.