(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Early in the 21st century, for the first time in history, there were more democracies in the world than authoritarian states. According to the experts, a total of 98 countries had free governments, while another 80 could still be defined as dictatorships. Of course, we are talking about smooth transitions, and probably also different ways of defining the terms, but the numbers seemed to make sense. New information technology, globalization and rising prosperity helped the development in the right direction, and people even began to talk about dictators as a dying species.
But then came the setback. The dramatic financial crisis sent the world economy into a tailspin, and it undermined democratic forms of government. In 2019, only 87 democracies could be counted, while the authoritarian countries now numbered 92.
You cannot force the creative class to be creative. It has limited the dictator's opportunities to exercise coercion.
The report was obtained from Sergei Guriev, who is professor of economics at Science Po in Paris, and Daniel Treisman, professor of political science at the University of California, who have now written a book in which they deal with the phenomenon. It is easy to regard the return of authoritarian leaders as something determined by the economic cycle, and thus also something that will go away by itself again as soon as the economy gets back on its feet. But this is a dangerous simplification. The two researchers' real explanation is that the 21st century has brought us a whole new type of dictatorial leaders, who differ markedly from the 20th century.
In fact, they are characterized by going in the exact opposite direction, which probably makes them less visible, so by setting up models and a kind of typology, the book gives us a tool to understand them – and including what could rightly be called the mystery of Vladimir Putin .
From fear to spin
When the former KGB man was elected to the presidency in Russia in March 2000, he claimed to respect the principles of democracy. But Putin immediately began to centralize state power, which might immediately seem logical enough after Russia's turbulent times in the 1990s, but it did not stop there. He went further, among other things by bringing the media under tight control, and when in 2011 he responded to popular protests with mass arrests and further austerity, he really stepped into the character of an authoritarian leader.
But he did it markedly differently than the Soviet Union's Josef Stalin, who stands as one of the 20th century's most brutal dictators with millions of human lives in his bloody trail. Because while Stalin built his power on fear, Putin has amassed power through cunning and deception. He is a modern autocrat, or a so-called spin dictator.
The researchers point out a number of methods. An apparently free press, which covers pure propaganda, is one of them. Added to this are regular elections, which are pure play for the gallery, but which should give the impression of democratic conditions, with open borders and freedom for citizens to travel wherever they want. And the most important thing is probably to avoid violent suppression of the opposition, or at least do it discreetly.
However, this does not mean that spin dictators are pacifists. Civil wars or ethnic rebellions can be extremely bloody. Russia's second war in Chechnya cost tens of thousands of lives – but when an ethnic group can be associated with terrorism, the leader can gain further popularity by fighting it. This is more or less what Putin is doing in relation to Ukraine, when he describes the political leadership as Nazi. It is pure spin with dramatic consequences.
However, Putin is by no means unique. He uses the same methods as a number of other authoritarian leaders, and it is probably most obvious to compare him with Hungary's leader, Viktor Orbán, and Venezuela's now deceased president, Hugo Chávez. Naturally, there are also lots of differences between the three, but they have in common that they have drawn lots of inspiration from Singapore.
There, in September 1956, a number of student protests were experienced, which were put down with a heavy hand. But at the election in 1959, a new leader came who understood how it should be done. Lee Kuan Yew created Singapore's economic miracle, accompanied by tight political control. It is the playbook Putin followed many years later. In 1989, where he was still in power, he thus expressed his great dismay at the behavior of the Chinese authorities towards the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square – not so much because he opposed the Chinese attitude, but because he found it foolish to expose himself in that way towards the rest of the world.
To consent to the illusion
The authors point to three decisive factors, which constitute the dangerous modernization cocktail. We have gone from the industrial to the post-industrial society, economy and information have become globalised, and the liberal world order has come into existence. This is a tendency that has really taken off after the end of the Cold War.
It has been a common assumption that this process would almost automatically lead to democratic conditions, but this is not necessarily the case. In reality, this puts the classic dictator in a dilemma. Because with the development, the labor market has also changed. Manual factory jobs are being automated, and the so-called creative class is getting bigger. This is everything from computer programmers and academics to journalists, a group which in the USA in 2015 comprised 52 million. people, or one third of the workforce. Something similar has happened elsewhere, and it has limited the dictator's opportunities to exercise coercion. In the past, Stalin or Mao could create increased production by forcing people into the fields, but you cannot force the creative class to be creative.
It is all this, which is making an impact in these years and a spin-dictator like Vladimir Putin has not hesitated to take advantage of the opportunity. As the book puts it, the leaders in the communist era sought to create an illusion of consent, which was expressed in the bombastic May 1st parades and ritualistic election acts, whereas Putin, during more than twenty years in power, has caused a large number of Russians to consent to the illusion. But then the two researchers also point out that this illusion can easily burst at some point, and if that happens there is a danger that even the most polished spin-dictator will resort to the brutal and bloody means of his predecessors to maintain power. That may be the transformation Putin is currently undergoing.
