Your Majesty Mr. President : An exploration and critical analysis of William Partlett’stheory of constitutional dark arts, with focus on Russia

Democracy is on the decline, all the while authoritarianism is increasing. Multiple scientific theories have emerged as a result, attempting to explain this phenomenon. One of the newer ones is constitutional dark arts by William Partlett. He argues that the discrepancy between the constitution and reality exemplifies what he refers to as a deceptive dark art, where authoritarian leaders manipulate constitutional provisions to maintain power while attempting to appear democratic. This thesis aims to provide a reconstruction of Partlett’s theory, followed by a critical analysis of its scientific qualities. The methodology is heavily inspired by Ludvig Beckman’s critique of ideas, where he puts logical coherence, empirical support and theoretical clarity as the focus of attention. These three criterias of Beckman’s are utilized as points of departure when analyzing constitutional dark arts in this qualitative text analysis. The analysis furthermore concludes that Partlett's theory, while insightful, suffers from various limitations in relation to the critique of ideas. To conclude, constitutional dark arts as a theory has potential, however the issues highlighted in this thesis’ analysis hinder the evaluation and broader applicability of it.