The agency of (public) agencies: How perceived organizational protections shape civil servants’ resistance to democratic backsliding

The third wave of autocratization has triggered changes in politico-administrative dynamics that scholars are beginning to unravel. We contribute to this endeavor by studying the role of perceived organizational protections in mitigating the impacts of democratic backsliding on state and rule of law dismantling. Through an original survey of public servants in Brazil, we test a theoretically informed model of six agency features shaping individual intentions to react to political attacks during the Bolsonaro presidency (2019–2022). The findings suggest that while some features effectively operate as protections and strengthen resistance intentions, others contradict theoretical expectations, inviting alternative explanations and new research. In addition to confirming the overall importance of agency-level factors in the fight against democratic backsliding, we emphasize the theoretical importance of the interaction between individual and organizational aspects in shaping conflictive politico-administrative dynamics.