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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 – employ

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.

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.