New research sheds light on how mediocre employees help would-be authoritarians maintain power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/world/americas/actually-democracy-dies-in-hr.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jVA.MwBQ.MAx8eyQrAuOT

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In the absence of real data, researchers have tended to assume that [the employees] cooperate because of ideological extremism, fear of persecution or some combination of the two.

New research, drawing on an extraordinary data set from Argentina’s Dirty War in the 1970s and ’80s, suggests a very different explanation. It turns out that the kinds of career pressures familiar to employees everywhere — the desire to revive a stalled career or obtain a minor promotion — can be enough to incentivize lower- and midlevel officials to violate professional obligations, fundamental norms and even basic morality. The people who make those decisions, the research suggests, are neither extremists nor victims. They are often just middling workers looking for a way to get ahead.

Does that match your observations?