How civil service purges have played out around the world

Looking abroad for clues on “Schedule F”

At the tail end of his first term, Donald Trump took aim at America's 150-year-old independent civil service. An executive order issued in October 2020 would have gutted protections for civil servants and prioritized loyalty to Trump over expertise in the hiring process. Now, Trump and those in his orbit (including the authors of “Project 2025”) promise to reinstate this policy — widely referred to as “Schedule F” — in the first days of a second Trump administration. 

Trump’s Schedule F is not original — it borrows from other authoritarians. 

Indeed, almost every 21st Century autocrat around the world has pursued some form of a civil service purge. Like Trump, these leaders view an independent civil service as an obstacle to consolidating power. And so they move quickly to undermine protections for civil servants and replace them with hand-picked loyalists. 

Read more: Trump’s Schedule F plan, explained

These attacks on civil servants by autocratic leaders elsewhere can help us understand how similar purges would likely play out during a second Trump term. 

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has decimated the country’s civil service

Trump has publicly admired Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who has taken extreme steps toward replacing independent civil servants with party loyalists. 

After returning to office in 2010, one of Orbán’s first acts was to dismantle civil servants’ labor protections, allowing political appointees to fire independent career employees without cause. Though the country’s Constitutional Court eventually overturned this law, its ruling came too late. The government passed a modified version of the law in 2011, by which point civil servants belonging to any opposition party were purged from the government.  

Since then, more than 25% of Hungary's civil servants have been replaced by inexperienced Orbán loyalists. Civil service purges have spanned the entire government, weakening the country’s education system, pension services, and environmental protections. By replacing expert civil servants with inexperienced cronies, corruption has flourished, and even “basic public services such as water, sanitation, and electricity” are no longer reliable.  

In Hungary, Orbán’s takeover of the country’s civil service facilitated his consolidation of power by eliminating any potential pushback from experts and enriching his political allies. 

Poland’s autocratic government followed Orbán’s steps to gut civil service protections and replace career experts with party loyalists  

Just one month after returning to power in 2015, Jarosław Kaczyński and his Law and Justice Party (PiS) took aim at Poland’s civil service protections. 

Kaczyński made good on his promise of creating “Budapest in Warsaw,” as the government eliminated the competitive hiring process and prioritized filling positions with PiS loyalists. But this wasn’t the first time PiS had undermined Poland’s civil service. In 2006, the then-PiS government amended the Civil Service Act to quadruple the number of political appointees, decreasing expertise and increasing corruption. Clearly, Kaczyński and his PiS allies believed there was more work to be done upon returning to office a decade later.

By 2023, the Polish civil service had become an “instrument” of PiS control. Corruption flourished, exemplified by the massive “cash-for-visas” scheme in which upwards of 250,000 visas were reportedly issued to non-E.U. citizens in exchange for bribes. The scheme was orchestrated by PiS loyalists, who pressured career diplomats to fast-track visas and skip the usual vetting process. Over eight years, the PiS government shifted decision-making authority from career civil servants to political appointees, decreasing effective governance and coinciding with what Freedom House has called the “swiftest democratic decline” across Europe. 

The speed at which PiS targeted and politicized the civil service upon retaking office in 2015 underscores its perceived importance for facilitating autocratic power grabs — making Trump’s promises to revive Schedule F early in a second term all the more alarming. 

Brazil’s autocratic President Jair Bolsonaro fired over 3,500 career officials on his third day in office

In an attempt to purge the government of potential opposition supporters, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro fired over 3,500 officials on his third day in office. 

During Bolsonaro’s four years in power, career experts were regularly dismissed for political reasons and quickly replaced with unqualified loyalists. Military officials were increasingly appointed to positions typically held by policy experts to bolster support for Bolsonaro within the civil service.

Attacks on the civil service helped Bolsonaro shift policy toward his far-right agenda. For instance, the proliferation of loyalists and “sidelining” of civil servants made it easier for the Bolsonaro government to dismantle policies related to human rights, sustainability, and deforestation. The militarization of Brazil’s bureaucracy coupled with continuous civil service purges aimed to stamp out any potential opposition that could challenge Bolsonaro’s agenda and his hold on power. 

As in Hungary and Poland, Bolsonaro’s dismantling of Brazil’s civil service was one of the first steps in his quest to consolidate total power. After his loss in Brazil’s 2022 election, a crowd of his supporters stormed government buildings in an attack reminiscent of the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Like his “great friend” Trump, Bolsonaro continued to denigrate his country’s democracy even as he left office. 

Attacks on the civil service are a common tactic among autocrats

Beyond Hungary, Poland, and Brazil, attacks on the civil service constitute one of the major “administrative tools” modern autocrats use to dismantle democracy. 

In Russia, Vladimir Putin cast civil servants as an early enemy of his government and abandoned reforms aimed at professionalizing the civil service. To be clear, the Russian bureaucracy of the 1990s was far from an efficient and independent civil service. Still, Putin-backed laws in the early 2000s made matters worse. The new laws rolled back political neutrality and merit-based hiring requirements to enforce top-down control over civil servants. Nearly a quarter of a century later and the “policy wonks” in Russia’s civil service are essential to Putin’s power vertical — “they are totally beholden to Putin for their position, but Putin owes them nothing.” 

Similarly, the politicization of Venezuela’s civil service under presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro cemented the country’s transition to authoritarianism. Chávez eliminated perceived non-loyalists from government service, while Maduro’s purges have become a hallmark of the current regime. Both Chávez and Maduro recognized the importance of controlling the country’s oil revenues to consolidate power, which they achieved through subordinating formerly independent agencies and civil servants. These attacks have created a “politicized, loyalist, but largely unqualified bureaucracy,” hardening the authoritarian system that dominates the country today. 

Aspiring autocrats regularly use their platforms to attack civil servants, which often coincides with democratic backsliding. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has established personalist rule — “the domination of the political realm by a single individual” — since coming to power in 2003. To maintain this personalist system, Erdoğan has implemented mass civil service purges, replacing policy experts with loyalists. And Mexico’s outgoing populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) dismissed thousands of federal employees and attempted to politicize the country’s independent election authority. AMLO consolidated control over many of Mexico’s independent institutions, and new president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum previously supported his replacement of expert staff with loyalists. 

Read more:  The Civil Service, Explained

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Key Takeaways From Abroad 

Though these cases are non-exhaustive, they highlight civil service attacks as a key strategy of autocratic actors. 

While these attacks aren’t all carried out in the same way, they usually come early in an autocrat’s tenure, or when the autocrat aims to expand their hold on power. Following this playbook, Donald Trump has promised to both authorize civil service purges — through Schedule F — during the first days of a second term, and increase his personal power. 

As part of Protect Democracy’s Authoritarian Playbook, experts identified the seven key tactics that autocrats regularly employ in their pursuit of power. Around the world, civil service purges are specifically designed with these tactics in mind, facilitating autocratic takeovers: 

• Civil service purges politicize independent institutions by elevating political loyalists whose only allegiance is to the autocrat. In Hungary, Orbán’s “political cleansing” of the civil service eliminated experts and introduced loyalty requirements across the government. And in Brazil, Bolsonaro systematically investigated and dismissed civil servants with ties to the opposition party, to quash any potential dissent within the government. 

• Politicization of the civil service clears the way for executive aggrandizement because the malleable loyalists installed in policymaking positions defer power to the autocrat. Eventually, the autocratic executive controls the entire governing apparatus — enabling the kinds of personalist systems established by Putin in Russia and Erdoğan in Turkey. 

• Civil service purges are often initiated by an autocratic disinformation campaign aimed at career bureaucrats. Much like Trump’s obsession with the “deep state,” global autocrats use similar tactics to scapegoat civil servants for their own leadership failings. In turn, co-opted government agencies and media outlets promote regime propaganda and disinformation to inflate the autocrat’s popularity.

• Dismantling the civil service helps autocrats target marginalized communities by weaponizing agencies against perceived “enemies” and gutting government services. In Hungary and Poland, the consolidation of power by the far-right has enabled state-sponsored attacks on women and the LGBTQ+ community. Under Bolsonaro, civil servants working to protect human rights in Brazil were persecuted as he cast marginalized groups as early adversaries of his government. When civil servants are replaced with loyalists, the autocrat has free reign to target vulnerable communities with impunity and stoke violence against any opposition. 

• Replacing expert civil servants with political loyalists allows the autocrat to corrupt elections. The speed at which autocrats target civil servants helps them politicize independent institutions early, including those tasked with overseeing elections. In Mexico, López Obrador targeted the country’s independent National Electoral Institute (INE) throughout his time in office. Despite large protests, he is still pushing reforms that would politicize independent institutions like the INE and concentrate his party’s executive power before his successor takes office.

In short, civil service purges are key to carrying out the authoritarian agenda. Attacks on the civil service deteriorate governing outcomes and accelerate autocratization — underscoring the importance of maintaining an independent civil service in the face of Donald Trump’s continued threats.