Autocratization through academic capture: When and how would-be autocrats threaten academic freedom

• Academic capture is a deliberate mode of autocratization. • Autocratization through academic capture undermines all dimensions of academic freedom, with cumulative and enduring effects. • Substantial decline in academic freedom results in either authoritarian consolidation or democratic collapse. • Autocratization modes reinforce each other and speed up the process. Over the past decade, academic freedom has faced unprecedented challenges worldwide. While existing scholarship often treats restrictions on academia as a collateral damage of autocratization, this article argues that the erosion of academic freedom constitutes a distinct mode of autocratization through academic capture. Drawing on global data from the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) and the Academic Freedom Index (AFI), the article examines the relationship between autocratization episodes and changes in academic freedom between 1990 and 2024. The empirical analysis demonstrates significant declines across all dimensions of academic freedom following the onset of autocratization. In the majority of cases where autocratization episodes coincide with decline episodes of academic freedom, these processes culminate either in the consolidation of authoritarian rule or democratic breakdown. To complement the quantitative analysis, four illustrative case studies – India, Georgia, Venezuela, and Poland – trace the strategies through which governments undermine academic freedom as part of their broader autocratizing toolkit. The case studies reveal that academic capture is not confined to authoritarian regimes but can unfold in liberal and electoral democracies alike, often through a combination of different strategies. Overall, the article offers a novel conceptual lens for understanding the dynamics of autocratization, recognising academic capture not as a symptom of autocratization, but as a distinct pathway through which autocratization unfolds.