8 ms·

The new authoritarianism

60 points by lkrubner 12y ago

lkrubner 12y ago
This part seems very true: "Dictatorships are not what they used to be. The totalitarian tyrants of the past – such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot – employed terror, indoctrination, and isolation to monopolise power. ... The new autocracies often simulate democracy, holding elections that the incumbents almost always win, bribing and censoring the private press rather than abolishing it, and replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West (Gandhi 2008, Levitsky and Way 2010). Their leaders often enjoy genuine popularity – at least after eliminating any plausible rivals. State propaganda aims not to ‘engineer human souls’ but to boost the dictator’s ratings. Political opponents are harassed and defamed, charged with fabricated crimes, and encouraged to emigrate, rather than being murdered en masse."
- steveeq1 12y ago
  Kind of reminds me of this comic. https://therionorteline.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/huxley-vs-orwell.jpg https://therionorteline.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/huxley-v...
  - RyanMcGreal 12y ago
    If you haven't read Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death, I highly recommend it.
  - aswanson 12y ago
    Huxley nailed it. I have to read that book again.
- hackuser 12y ago
  I'm not sure their characterization of the past is accurate; all of those tactics have long been practiced widely. Hitler was elected and had genuine support. The Soviets and many others held periodic fake elections, as did many other dictators, and even today there are people in Russia who love Stalin. Saddam Hussein had the Sunnis and Baathists. Every dictator has sufficient genuine support, or they would be overthrown; you can't imprison everyone. Propaganda and harassing political opposition are very old tactics. > replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West Interestingly, isn't that the outlook of the Tea Partiers? The only consistency I see is a rejection of the West: Science, liberty (for groups other than Tea Partiers), tolerance, democratic government (if they are outvoted, government is illegitimate and to be violently resisted), environmentalism, organized labor, secularism, etc.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    I liked your first point. The second reads like so much resentment of an amorphous group. I'm not sure why I should prefer your brand to the other.
    - hackuser 12y ago
      > The second reads like so much resentment of an amorphous group. I'm not sure why I should prefer your brand to the other. I don't see resentful language and I built an argument on reasonbaly well-established facts. I understand my point may provoke members of that group; that's not my goal but it may be unavoidable when making a point that critical. I'd be interested in learning from you where you think the argument falls short. Your comment is only a negative characterization.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    Hitler was not elected. Please stop propagating the myth. Hitler did have genuine support, but he lost the 1932 presidential election. The Nazis never achieved a parliamentary majority as a party until all the other parties were banned. In 1932 Germany, the Chancellor was appointed by the President, who was elected. Paul von Hindenberg won the election. He appointed Hitler to the Chancellorship. Hitler achieved power via the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, not ballots.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      The head of government in a parliamentary system (in the German system of the time, the Chancellor) is usually appointed by the chief of state (in that system, the President), but this is usually constrained by constitutional restrictions governing who the chief of state can ask to form a government and requiring the government to be supported by a majority of the parliament. The Nazi party was the largest party in both 1932 parliamentary elections, with no party securing a governing majority after the July election (leading to rule by emergency decree by the President and a minority government), but after the November election the Nazi party formed a coalition with various others to form a government (now, those others thought that they'd be able to blunt the Nazi party and their growing popularity more by including them in a government and giving Hitler the chancellorship, but that's not an uncommon reason for bringing trying to bring a party into a governing coalition.) Hitler was elected in the same sense that Benjamin Netanyahu, or any other head of government in a parliamentary system whose party only directly controls a minority of seats, was, or is, elected. > Hitler achieved power via the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, not ballots. Hitler achieved greater power through those mechanisms, sure, but he was in a position to do so only because of the Nazi parties strong showing in both of the 1932 elections, and the inability of any opponents of the Nazis to form a government without them.
- HillRat 12y ago
  There's a lovely Spanish term of art, "democradura," used to characterize these sorts of illiberal democracies (which are not, contra the article, limited to anti-Atlanticist regimes -- there are plenty of Western allies, and to some degree even Western states, that exhibit some or all of the features of illiberal democracies). It's a shame that the paper itself is paywalled, but I like the underlying insight that effective authoritarianism is essentially about controlling information, not behavior. What this has to say about states like our own is, unfortunately, an exercise left to the polemicist.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  That makes it sound like even the autocrats just don't really care about any kind of ideology anymore. Kinda depressing.
noonespecial 12y ago
The challenge for an incompetent dictator is, then, to fool the public into thinking he is competent. He chooses from among a repertoire of tools – propaganda, repression of protests, co-optation of the elite, and censorship of their messages. All such tools cost money, which must come from taxing the citizens, depressing their living standards, and indirectly lowering their estimate of the dictator’s competence. Hence the trade-off. So these states edge towards using soft-power, influence, and PR balanced against the cost of this which must be obtained through taxes to "fool" the people into thinking the leadership is competent if it is in fact not (which if successful will be indistinguishable to the common citizen from actually being competent)? It seems that like the corrupt mafioso that edges towards legitimate business as his income swells these political systems creep towards something an awful lot like the western "democracies" we have now. As a citizen, how the hell would you be able to tell the difference?
- bmelton 12y ago
  The only real defense that comes to mind is to discourage every governmental attempt at obtaining power that might be, in any way, deemed coercive. This of course flies against the interests of what most people assume government to be for, and likely, makes it untenable, especially as the masses trend towards government-as-a-solution more and more.
  - Frondo 12y ago
    Or, as I've said elsewhere, you can get involved. Go take part in local politics--the local stuff has more impact on your day-to-day living, and it's easier to get into and be a part of. Don't like the government you've got? Get in there and start fixing it. Resistance is irrelevant; government's there and it'll keep being there whether you try and fix it or not.
  - wffurr 12y ago
    I prefer government-as-a-solution to trust-the-capitalist-oligarchs-as-a-solution. At least I get a vote with the government.
calibraxis 12y ago
Hilarious: "This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez)" Take former US president Jimmy Carter: "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world." (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-...) Compare to the US's Bush vs. Gore vote fiasco where a court decided the vote. (And where the winner failed to win a plurality of the popular vote. Not to mention that most votes don't count anyway, due to swing states; and racist voter disenfranchisement.) Also compare to the powerful Bush and Clinton families. These authors are from France and the US. If they were serious about improving the world, they'd look at their immensely powerful militant nations. Not far weaker ones.
- Alex_Notchenko 12y ago
  Guriev is actually from Russia. He was exiled in 2013. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/gurievs-exile-is-a-huge-loss-for-russia/481652.html http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/gurievs-exile-...
- griffinmahon 12y ago
  In the same way, the point in the the third paragraph about incumbents always winning simulated elections in these countries is moot. Incumbents also literally almost always win elections in the US! Especially at the Congressional level, which is where real material changes are affected (or not).
Dirlewanger 12y ago
None of this is "new". Pretty much everything described has occurred in most past civilizations to varying degrees. The speed at which it happens and the tools used are the only new things.
MCRed 12y ago
I spent 6 years outside the USA from 2008-2013. I highly recommend everyone do this. Spend several years in Europe or South America (the places I went.) You will quickly come to see-- I expect-- just how much of the media inside the USA is propaganda. Everything from Law & Order to the nightly news is mostly pro-government propaganda. (Supporting our politburo type government, not a dictatorship, but in the past 100 years the one party has won every single election.) But you gotta get outside the bubble to really see it.
- mark_l_watson 12y ago
  I like to read international news sources (news.google.com can be a good jumping off point) and, yes, I agree with you that our news in the USA is engineered to tell a story that keeps people in line.
  - throwaway48303 12y ago
    International news sources, especially state-funded ones like Al Jazeera and RT, are just as biased, just in the other direction (US and Europe are teh suxx, Russia and OPEC are your friends!). If you can handle the cognitive load of filtering out the biases from all sources and have the perspective and knowledge to synthesize them into some objective truth, then my hat is off to you because I can't do that.
    - nothrabannosir 12y ago
      There is only one list that RT and Al Jazeera belong in together; the "what two news organizations are polar opposites of each other?" list. Anyway, the point is diversity, not supremacy. Don't watch BBC or Al Jazeera because it's supposedly "better" than US media; watch because its bias is in different areas. All it does is help you in evaluate a different point of view. Worst case, you hear the same thing twice. Except RT. That's just trash.
      - timepiece 12y ago
        RT and AJ are both pro status-quo for their Establishment. So for me, they're in the same league but I always love to check the perspectives for the big players on the world stage from time to time to see what they're up to.
Mikeb85 12y ago
If you want to see authoritarianism, you don't have far to look. Various western agencies have already 'secured' the populations in most western countries, and in some (USA), the 'ruling' class is very narrow, representing a single set of interests. In the USA's particular case, you have 2 parties which, despite the claimed differences, wind up representing the exact same interests. Obama, far from being a reversal of Bush's policies, continued and expanded all of them. And no matter who comes into power, will likely expand on every repressive law and strategy that's in effect right now.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  And how do you explain the legalization of marijuana. No politicians or mustache twirlers want it to happen and yet it keeps occurring.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I doubt that most politicians or mustache twirlers are terribly concerned that marijuana legalization distracts people from, say, domestic spying or military interventions.
  - Mikeb85 12y ago
    I think they just realized that the legalization of it will keep people distracted, whereas the continued prohibition of it would cause social unrest. What we're 'allowed' to do is basically anything that keeps us too occupied to overthrow the ruling class...
    - happyscrappy 12y ago
      Guns, encryption, alternate political parties, at some point you have too many people that would have to be in on your conspiracy.
    - brandonmenc 12y ago
      Wouldn't "they" get more mileage from an outright endorsement of drug use? Get the people on their side? You're just rationalizing.
JimboOmega 12y ago
This article reminds me of a question I've thought about a lot recently: When did elections become the norm? It seems like every despotic nation needs at least some kind of elections. Even in totally authoritarian countries, like say, Saddam's Iraq or North Korea, elections are held even if the leader always wins in a landslide and it's clear to any outside observer that the results are pre-determined. 200 years ago, there was no need for such things. Monarchy was considered a perfectly legitimate form of government. Voting was considered dangerous, and people often argued that democracy would be "mob rule" or "tyranny of the masses". Systems like the electoral college (and representative democracy) were created to put a check on such fears. Even without Monarchy, "enlightened despotism" was advanced by many in the 19th century. Consider the words of (19th century general) Santa Anna: "[The Mexican people] do not know what [liberty] is, unenlightened as they are, and under the influence of a Catholic clergy, a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one." But at some point along the way, it became clear that to have any legitimacy, you have to have some kind of election. I wonder why? Or when?
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > 200 years ago, there was no need for such things. Monarchy was considered a perfectly legitimate form of government. Voting was considered dangerous, and people often argued that democracy would be "mob rule" or "tyranny of the masses". By 1815, even many monarchies had elections of some form. > Consider the words of (19th century general) Santa Anna: "[The Mexican people] do not know what [liberty] is, unenlightened as they are, and under the influence of a Catholic clergy, a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one." Yeah, but Santa Anna said that to justify his actions at replacing an federal representative system (which he himself had also been instrumental in creating) with a centralized dictatorship, an act which provoked much of the country to revolt with three breakaway republics declared, and a massive civil war. So, in context, its not really support for the idea that people even at that time didn't see elections and democracy as important. Indeed, arguably, the results of things like Santa Anna's efforts are why later authoritarians often prefer at least an illusion of democratic accountability.

60 points by lkrubner 12y ago

This part seems very true: "Dictatorships are not what they used to be. The totalitarian tyrants of the past – such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot – employed terror, indoctrination, and isolation to monopolise power. ... The new autocracies often simulate democracy, holding elections that the incumbents almost always win, bribing and censoring the private press rather than abolishing it, and replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West (Gandhi 2008, Levitsky and Way 2010). Their leaders often enjoy genuine popularity – at least after eliminating any plausible rivals. State propaganda aims not to ‘engineer human souls’ but to boost the dictator’s ratings. Political opponents are harassed and defamed, charged with fabricated crimes, and encouraged to emigrate, rather than being murdered en masse."

steveeq1 12y ago
Kind of reminds me of this comic. https://therionorteline.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/huxley-vs-orwell.jpg https://therionorteline.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/huxley-v...
- RyanMcGreal 12y ago
  If you haven't read Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves to Death, I highly recommend it.
- aswanson 12y ago
  Huxley nailed it. I have to read that book again.
hackuser 12y ago
I'm not sure their characterization of the past is accurate; all of those tactics have long been practiced widely. Hitler was elected and had genuine support. The Soviets and many others held periodic fake elections, as did many other dictators, and even today there are people in Russia who love Stalin. Saddam Hussein had the Sunnis and Baathists. Every dictator has sufficient genuine support, or they would be overthrown; you can't imprison everyone. Propaganda and harassing political opposition are very old tactics. > replacing comprehensive political ideologies with an amorphous resentment of the West Interestingly, isn't that the outlook of the Tea Partiers? The only consistency I see is a rejection of the West: Science, liberty (for groups other than Tea Partiers), tolerance, democratic government (if they are outvoted, government is illegitimate and to be violently resisted), environmentalism, organized labor, secularism, etc.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  I liked your first point. The second reads like so much resentment of an amorphous group. I'm not sure why I should prefer your brand to the other.
  - hackuser 12y ago
    > The second reads like so much resentment of an amorphous group. I'm not sure why I should prefer your brand to the other. I don't see resentful language and I built an argument on reasonbaly well-established facts. I understand my point may provoke members of that group; that's not my goal but it may be unavoidable when making a point that critical. I'd be interested in learning from you where you think the argument falls short. Your comment is only a negative characterization.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  Hitler was not elected. Please stop propagating the myth. Hitler did have genuine support, but he lost the 1932 presidential election. The Nazis never achieved a parliamentary majority as a party until all the other parties were banned. In 1932 Germany, the Chancellor was appointed by the President, who was elected. Paul von Hindenberg won the election. He appointed Hitler to the Chancellorship. Hitler achieved power via the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, not ballots.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    The head of government in a parliamentary system (in the German system of the time, the Chancellor) is usually appointed by the chief of state (in that system, the President), but this is usually constrained by constitutional restrictions governing who the chief of state can ask to form a government and requiring the government to be supported by a majority of the parliament. The Nazi party was the largest party in both 1932 parliamentary elections, with no party securing a governing majority after the July election (leading to rule by emergency decree by the President and a minority government), but after the November election the Nazi party formed a coalition with various others to form a government (now, those others thought that they'd be able to blunt the Nazi party and their growing popularity more by including them in a government and giving Hitler the chancellorship, but that's not an uncommon reason for bringing trying to bring a party into a governing coalition.) Hitler was elected in the same sense that Benjamin Netanyahu, or any other head of government in a parliamentary system whose party only directly controls a minority of seats, was, or is, elected. > Hitler achieved power via the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, not ballots. Hitler achieved greater power through those mechanisms, sure, but he was in a position to do so only because of the Nazi parties strong showing in both of the 1932 elections, and the inability of any opponents of the Nazis to form a government without them.
HillRat 12y ago
There's a lovely Spanish term of art, "democradura," used to characterize these sorts of illiberal democracies (which are not, contra the article, limited to anti-Atlanticist regimes -- there are plenty of Western allies, and to some degree even Western states, that exhibit some or all of the features of illiberal democracies). It's a shame that the paper itself is paywalled, but I like the underlying insight that effective authoritarianism is essentially about controlling information, not behavior. What this has to say about states like our own is, unfortunately, an exercise left to the polemicist.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
That makes it sound like even the autocrats just don't really care about any kind of ideology anymore. Kinda depressing.

noonespecial 12y ago

The challenge for an incompetent dictator is, then, to fool the public into thinking he is competent. He chooses from among a repertoire of tools – propaganda, repression of protests, co-optation of the elite, and censorship of their messages. All such tools cost money, which must come from taxing the citizens, depressing their living standards, and indirectly lowering their estimate of the dictator’s competence. Hence the trade-off. So these states edge towards using soft-power, influence, and PR balanced against the cost of this which must be obtained through taxes to "fool" the people into thinking the leadership is competent if it is in fact not (which if successful will be indistinguishable to the common citizen from actually being competent)? It seems that like the corrupt mafioso that edges towards legitimate business as his income swells these political systems creep towards something an awful lot like the western "democracies" we have now. As a citizen, how the hell would you be able to tell the difference?

bmelton 12y ago
The only real defense that comes to mind is to discourage every governmental attempt at obtaining power that might be, in any way, deemed coercive. This of course flies against the interests of what most people assume government to be for, and likely, makes it untenable, especially as the masses trend towards government-as-a-solution more and more.
- Frondo 12y ago
  Or, as I've said elsewhere, you can get involved. Go take part in local politics--the local stuff has more impact on your day-to-day living, and it's easier to get into and be a part of. Don't like the government you've got? Get in there and start fixing it. Resistance is irrelevant; government's there and it'll keep being there whether you try and fix it or not.
- wffurr 12y ago
  I prefer government-as-a-solution to trust-the-capitalist-oligarchs-as-a-solution. At least I get a vote with the government.

calibraxis 12y ago

Hilarious: "This helps to explain why some clearly inept authoritarian leaders nevertheless hold on to power – and even popularity – for extended periods (cf. Hugo Chavez)" Take former US president Jimmy Carter: "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world." (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-...) Compare to the US's Bush vs. Gore vote fiasco where a court decided the vote. (And where the winner failed to win a plurality of the popular vote. Not to mention that most votes don't count anyway, due to swing states; and racist voter disenfranchisement.) Also compare to the powerful Bush and Clinton families. These authors are from France and the US. If they were serious about improving the world, they'd look at their immensely powerful militant nations. Not far weaker ones.

Alex_Notchenko 12y ago
Guriev is actually from Russia. He was exiled in 2013. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/gurievs-exile-is-a-huge-loss-for-russia/481652.html http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/gurievs-exile-...
griffinmahon 12y ago
In the same way, the point in the the third paragraph about incumbents always winning simulated elections in these countries is moot. Incumbents also literally almost always win elections in the US! Especially at the Congressional level, which is where real material changes are affected (or not).

Dirlewanger 12y ago

None of this is "new". Pretty much everything described has occurred in most past civilizations to varying degrees. The speed at which it happens and the tools used are the only new things.

MCRed 12y ago

I spent 6 years outside the USA from 2008-2013. I highly recommend everyone do this. Spend several years in Europe or South America (the places I went.) You will quickly come to see-- I expect-- just how much of the media inside the USA is propaganda. Everything from Law & Order to the nightly news is mostly pro-government propaganda. (Supporting our politburo type government, not a dictatorship, but in the past 100 years the one party has won every single election.) But you gotta get outside the bubble to really see it.

mark_l_watson 12y ago
I like to read international news sources (news.google.com can be a good jumping off point) and, yes, I agree with you that our news in the USA is engineered to tell a story that keeps people in line.
- throwaway48303 12y ago
  International news sources, especially state-funded ones like Al Jazeera and RT, are just as biased, just in the other direction (US and Europe are teh suxx, Russia and OPEC are your friends!). If you can handle the cognitive load of filtering out the biases from all sources and have the perspective and knowledge to synthesize them into some objective truth, then my hat is off to you because I can't do that.
  - nothrabannosir 12y ago
    There is only one list that RT and Al Jazeera belong in together; the "what two news organizations are polar opposites of each other?" list. Anyway, the point is diversity, not supremacy. Don't watch BBC or Al Jazeera because it's supposedly "better" than US media; watch because its bias is in different areas. All it does is help you in evaluate a different point of view. Worst case, you hear the same thing twice. Except RT. That's just trash.
    - timepiece 12y ago
      RT and AJ are both pro status-quo for their Establishment. So for me, they're in the same league but I always love to check the perspectives for the big players on the world stage from time to time to see what they're up to.

Mikeb85 12y ago

If you want to see authoritarianism, you don't have far to look. Various western agencies have already 'secured' the populations in most western countries, and in some (USA), the 'ruling' class is very narrow, representing a single set of interests. In the USA's particular case, you have 2 parties which, despite the claimed differences, wind up representing the exact same interests. Obama, far from being a reversal of Bush's policies, continued and expanded all of them. And no matter who comes into power, will likely expand on every repressive law and strategy that's in effect right now.

happyscrappy 12y ago
And how do you explain the legalization of marijuana. No politicians or mustache twirlers want it to happen and yet it keeps occurring.
- baddox 12y ago
  I doubt that most politicians or mustache twirlers are terribly concerned that marijuana legalization distracts people from, say, domestic spying or military interventions.
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  I think they just realized that the legalization of it will keep people distracted, whereas the continued prohibition of it would cause social unrest. What we're 'allowed' to do is basically anything that keeps us too occupied to overthrow the ruling class...
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Guns, encryption, alternate political parties, at some point you have too many people that would have to be in on your conspiracy.
  - brandonmenc 12y ago
    Wouldn't "they" get more mileage from an outright endorsement of drug use? Get the people on their side? You're just rationalizing.

JimboOmega 12y ago

This article reminds me of a question I've thought about a lot recently: When did elections become the norm? It seems like every despotic nation needs at least some kind of elections. Even in totally authoritarian countries, like say, Saddam's Iraq or North Korea, elections are held even if the leader always wins in a landslide and it's clear to any outside observer that the results are pre-determined. 200 years ago, there was no need for such things. Monarchy was considered a perfectly legitimate form of government. Voting was considered dangerous, and people often argued that democracy would be "mob rule" or "tyranny of the masses". Systems like the electoral college (and representative democracy) were created to put a check on such fears. Even without Monarchy, "enlightened despotism" was advanced by many in the 19th century. Consider the words of (19th century general) Santa Anna: "[The Mexican people] do not know what [liberty] is, unenlightened as they are, and under the influence of a Catholic clergy, a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one." But at some point along the way, it became clear that to have any legitimacy, you have to have some kind of election. I wonder why? Or when?

dragonwriter 12y ago
> 200 years ago, there was no need for such things. Monarchy was considered a perfectly legitimate form of government. Voting was considered dangerous, and people often argued that democracy would be "mob rule" or "tyranny of the masses". By 1815, even many monarchies had elections of some form. > Consider the words of (19th century general) Santa Anna: "[The Mexican people] do not know what [liberty] is, unenlightened as they are, and under the influence of a Catholic clergy, a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one." Yeah, but Santa Anna said that to justify his actions at replacing an federal representative system (which he himself had also been instrumental in creating) with a centralized dictatorship, an act which provoked much of the country to revolt with three breakaway republics declared, and a massive civil war. So, in context, its not really support for the idea that people even at that time didn't see elections and democracy as important. Indeed, arguably, the results of things like Santa Anna's efforts are why later authoritarians often prefer at least an illusion of democratic accountability.