June 2017
Breaking Down Democracy:
Goals, Strategies, and Methods
of Modern Authoritarians
by Arch Puddington
CONTENTS
Executive Summary 1
Introduction: Modern Authoritarians: Origins,
Anatomy, Outlook 5
Chapters
1. Validating Autocracy through the Ballot 10
2. Propaganda at Home and Abroad 15
3. The Enemy Within: Civil Society at Bay 22
4. The Ministry of Truth in Peace and War 29
5. The Rise of ‘Illiberal Democracy’ 35
6. Flacks and Friends 41
7. Bullying the Neighbors: Frozen Conflicts,
the Near Abroad, and Other Innovations 47
8. Back to the Future 52
Conclusion: Authoritarianism Comes Calling 57
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This report emerged from a presentation on the state of global freedom conducted by the author and David J. Kramer, former
president of Freedom House. The major source of data and analysis is Freedom in the World, the report on political rights and
civil liberties published annually by Freedom House. The author wishes to thank the Freedom House analysis staff and the
many scholars who have participated in Freedom House assessments of global democracy. The author also extends special
thanks to Elen Aghekyan, Tyler Roylance, Alexandra Cain, Danielle Recanati, Amy Slipowitz, Alan Williams, Christopher Walker,
Bret Nelson, Michael Johnson, Rebeka Foley, Zselyke Csaky, Sarah Repucci, Vanessa Tucker, Robert Ruby,
and Daniel Calingaert.
THE AUTHOR
Arch Puddington is Distinguished Scholar for Democracy Studies at Freedom House and a co-editor of Freedom in the World.
ON THE COVER
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, 2016. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
Executive Summary
Breaking Down Democracy: Goals, Strategies,
and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
by Arch Puddington
The 21st century has been marked by a resurgence of authoritarian
rule that has proved resilient despite economic fragility and
occasional popular resistance. Modern authoritarianism has
succeeded, where previous totalitarian systems failed, due to refined
and nuanced strategies of repression, the exploitation of open
societies, and the spread of illiberal policies in democratic countries
themselves. The leaders of today’s authoritarian systems devote fulltime
attention to the challenge of crippling the opposition without
annihilating it, and flouting the rule of law while maintaining a
plausible veneer of order, legitimacy, and prosperity.
Central to the modern authoritarian strategy is the
capture of institutions that undergird political pluralism.
The goal is to dominate not only the executive
and legislative branches, but also the media, the
judiciary, civil society, the commanding heights of the
economy, and the security forces. With these institutions
under the effective if not absolute control of an
incumbent leader, changes in government through fair
and honest elections become all but impossible.
Unlike Soviet-style communism, modern authoritarianism
is not animated by an overarching ideology or
the messianic notion of an ideal future society. Nor
do today’s autocrats seek totalitarian control over
people’s everyday lives, movements, or thoughts.
The media are more diverse and entertaining under
modern authoritarianism, civil society can enjoy an
independent existence (as long as it does not pursue
political change), citizens can travel around the country
or abroad with only occasional interference, and
private enterprise can flourish (albeit with rampant
corruption and cronyism).
This study explains how modern authoritarianism defends
and propagates itself, as regimes from different
regions and with diverse socioeconomic foundations
copy and borrow techniques of political control.
Among its major findings:
• Russia, under President Vladimir Putin, has
played an outsized role in the development of
modern authoritarian systems. This is particularly
true in the areas of media control, propaganda,
the smothering of civil society, and the
www.freedomhouse.org
1
BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
MAJOR DECLINES FOR INFLUENTIAL COUNTRIES OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS
0
Change in Freedom in the World Aggregate Score, 2007-2016
-5
-10
-15
-20
-25
Turkey
Bahrain
-25
Ethiopia
-21
Azerbaijan
Venezuela
-17 -17
Hungary
-16
Ecuador
Russia
Ukraine
-12 -12 -12
Afghanistan
-10
-30
-28
weakening of political pluralism. Russia has also
moved aggressively against neighboring states
where democratic institutions have emerged or
where democratic movements have succeeded
in ousting corrupt authoritarian leaders.
• The rewriting of history for political purposes is
common among modern authoritarians. Again,
Russia has taken the lead, with the state’s assertion
of authority over history textbooks and the
process, encouraged by Putin, of reassessing
the historical role of Joseph Stalin.
• The hiring of political consultants and lobbyists
from democratic countries to represent the
interests of autocracies is a growing phenomenon.
China is clearly in the vanguard, with multiple
representatives working for the state and for
large economic entities closely tied to the state.
But there are also K Street representatives for
Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Ethiopia,
and practically all of the authoritarian states in
the Middle East.
• The toxic combination of unfair elections and
crude majoritarianism is spreading from modern
authoritarian regimes to illiberal leaders in what
are still partly democratic countries. Increasingly,
populist politicians—once in office—claim
the right to suppress the media, civil society,
and other democratic institutions by citing
support from a majority of voters. The resulting
changes make it more difficult for the opposition
to compete in future elections and can pave
the way for a new authoritarian regime.
• An expanding cadre of politicians in democracies
are eager to emulate or cooperate with
authoritarian rulers. European parties of the
nationalistic right and anticapitalist left have
expressed admiration for Putin and aligned
their policy goals with his. Others have praised
2
Freedom House
EVERY INDICATOR HAS DECLINED OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS
0.0
Electoral
Process*
Pluralism and
Participation
Functioning of
Government*
Expression and
Belief
Association and
Assembly*
Rule of Law
Personal and
Individual Rights
-0.1
-0.2
Change in Score, 2007-2016
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
-0.6
-0.7
*Denotes indicators scored on a 12-point scale. All others are scored on a 16-point scale.
illiberal governments in countries like Hungary
for their rejection of international democratic
standards in favor of perceived national interests.
Even when there is no direct collaboration,
such behavior benefits authoritarian powers by
breaking down the unity and solidarity of the
democratic world.
• There has been a rise in authoritarian internationalism.
Authoritarian powers form loose
but effective alliances to block criticism at the
United Nations and regional organizations like
the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe and the Organization of American
States, and to defend embattled allies like Syria’s
Bashar al-Assad. There is also growing replication
of what might be called authoritarian best
practices, vividly on display in the new Chinese
law on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
and efforts by Russia and others to learn from
China’s experience in internet censorship.
• Modern authoritarians are working to revalidate
the concept of the leader-for-life. One of the
seeming gains of the postcommunist era was
the understanding that some form of term limits
should be imposed to prevent incumbents from
consolidating power into a dictatorship. In recent
years, however, a number of countries have
adjusted their constitutions to ease, eliminate,
or circumvent executive term limits. The result
has been a resurgence of potential leaders-forlife
from Latin America to Eurasia.
• While more subtle and calibrated methods of repression
are the defining feature of modern authoritarianism,
the past few years have featured
a reemergence of older tactics that undermine
the illusions of pluralism and openness as well
as integration with the global economy. Thus
Moscow has pursued its military intervention in
Ukraine despite economic sanctions and overseen
the assassination of opposition figures;
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
Beijing has revived the practice of coerced public
“confessions” and escalated its surveillance
of the Tibetan and Uighur minorities to totalitarian
levels; and Azerbaijan has made the Aliyev
family’s monopoly on political power painfully
obvious with the appointment of the president’s
wife as “first vice president.”
• Modern authoritarian systems are employing
these blunter methods in a context of increased
economic fragility. Venezuela is already in the
process of political and economic disintegration.
Other states that rely on energy exports
have also experienced setbacks due to low oil
and gas prices, and China faces rising debt and
slower growth after years of misallocated investment
and other structural problems. But these
regimes also face less international pressure to
observe democratic norms, raising their chances
of either surviving the current crises or—if
they break down—giving way to something even
worse.
In subsequent sections, this report will examine the
methods employed by authoritarian powers to neutralize
precisely those institutions that were thought
to be the most potent weapons against a revitalized
authoritarianism. The success of the Russian and
Chinese regimes in bringing to heel and even harnessing
the forces produced by globalization—digital
media, civil society, free markets—may be their most
impressive and troubling achievement.
Modern authoritarianism is particularly insidious in its
exploitation of open societies. Russia and China have
both taken advantage of democracies’ commitment to
freedom of expression and delivered infusions of propaganda
and disinformation. Moscow has effectively
prevented foreign broadcasting stations from reaching
Russian audiences even as it steadily expands the
reach of its own mouthpieces, the television channel
RT and the news service Sputnik. China blocks the
websites of mainstream foreign media while encouraging
its corporations to purchase influence in
popular culture abroad through control of Hollywood
studios. Similar combinations of obstruction at home
and interference abroad can be seen in sectors including
civil society, academia, and party politics.
The report draws on examples from a broad group
of authoritarian states and illiberal democracies, but
the focus remains on the two leading authoritarian
powers, China and Russia. Much of the report, in
fact, deals with Russia, since that country, more than
any other, has incubated and refined the ideas and
institutions at the foundation of 21st-century authoritarianism.
Finally, a basic assumption behind the report is that
modern authoritarianism will be a lasting feature of
geopolitics. Since 2012, both Vladimir Putin and Xi
Jinping have doubled down on existing efforts to
stamp out internal dissent, and both have grown more
aggressive on the world stage. All despotic regimes
have inherent weaknesses that leave them vulnerable
to sudden shocks and individually prone to collapse.
However, the past quarter-century has shown that
dictatorship in general will not disappear on its own.
Authoritarian systems will seek not just to survive, but
to weaken and defeat democracy around the world.
4
Freedom House
Introduction
Modern Authoritarianism: Origins, Anatomy, Outlook
As the world’s democracies confront a dangerous
internal challenge from populist and nationalist
political forces, it is imperative that they recognize the
simultaneous external threat presented by modern
authoritarian regimes. These 21 st century authoritarians
developed an arsenal of new tactics to use
against their domestic opponents, and gone on the
offensive in an effort to subvert and replace the liberal
international order.
But modern authoritarian systems are not simply
adversaries of free societies. They also represent an
alternative model—a grim future for beleaguered
democracies that have already fallen under the sway
of illiberal leaders and have suffered an erosion of
freedom.
Democracy under siege
Global democracy is currently facing the repercussions
of what has been called the “decade of decline.”
The phrase describes a 10-year-plus period, from 2006
to 2016, during which the state of freedom experienced
more reversals than gains as measured by Freedom
in the World, the annual report on political rights
and civil liberties published by Freedom House. 1
According to Freedom in the World, the crucial
indicators of democracy experienced setbacks in
each of the 10 years in question. In all, 105 countries
suffered net declines, while 61 showed some measure
of improvement. The decade marked the longest
democratic slump of its kind in more than 40 years of
Freedom House analysis. 2
The decade of decline has been principally characterized
by a steady erosion of political institutions in established
authoritarian countries, or in countries that
were clearly headed in that direction. In other words,
repressive countries became even more repressive—
the bad became even worse. 3
However, a parallel pattern of institutional erosion has
affected some more democratic states, pushing them
into the category of “illiberal democracies.” In these societies,
elections are regularly conducted, sometimes
under conditions that are reasonably fair. But the state,
usually under the control of a strong party or leader,
applies much of its energy to the systematic weakening
of political pluralism and the creation of a skewed
electoral playing field. Opposition parties are often
impotent, freedom of the press is circumscribed, and
the judiciary tends to be dominated by the ruling party.
Countries that fit this description include Hungary,
Bolivia, Ecuador, and, if recent trends continue, Poland.
There are many reasons for the global decline in democratic
indicators, but the statistical evidence from
Freedom in the World suggests that modern authoritarian
regimes have found a way to survive without
resorting to democratic reforms, and that a number
of democracies—as part of the general loss of liberal
consensus—are engaging in their own antidemocratic
experiments.
Modern authoritarianism
The traditional authoritarian state sought monopolistic
control over political life, a one-party system organized
around a strongman or military junta, and direct
rule by the executive, sometimes through martial law,
with little or no role for the parliament.
Traditional dictatorships and totalitarian regimes were
often defined by closed, command, or autarkic economies,
a state media monopoly with formal censorship,
and “civil society” organizations that were structured
as appendages of the ruling party or state. Especially
in military dictatorships, the use of force—including
military tribunals, curfews, arbitrary arrests, political
detentions, and summary executions—was pervasive.
Often facing international isolation, traditional dictatorships
and totalitarian regimes forged alliances based on
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
common ideologies, whether faith in Marxist revolution
or ultraconservative, anticommunist reaction.
As the 20th century drew to a close, the weaknesses
of both communist systems and traditional dictatorships
became increasingly apparent. Front and center
was the growing economic gap between countries
that had opted for market economies and regimes
that were committed to statist economies.
The political and economic barriers that had long sheltered
the old dictatorships were soon swept away, and
those that survived or recovered did so by making a
series of strategic concessions to the new global order.
Modern authoritarianism has a different set of defining
features:
• An illusion of pluralism that masks state control
over key political institutions, with co-opted or
otherwise defanged opposition parties allowed
to participate in regular elections
• State or oligarchic control over key elements of
the national economy, which is otherwise open
to the global economy and private investment,
to ensure loyalty to the regime and bolster
regime claims of legitimacy based on economic
prosperity
• State or oligarchic control over information on
certain political subjects and key sectors of the
media, which are otherwise pluralistic, with high
production values and entertaining content; independent
outlets survive with small audiences
and little influence
• Suppression of nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) that are focused on human rights or
political reform, but state tolerance or support
for progovernment or apolitical groups that work
on public health, education, and other development
issues
• Legalized political repression, with targets punished
through vaguely worded laws and politically
obedient courts
• Limited, selective, and typically hidden use of
extralegal force or violence, with a concentration
on political dissidents, critical journalists, and
officials who have fallen from favor
• Opportunistic, non-ideological cooperation with
fellow authoritarian states against pressure
for democratic reform or leadership changes,
international human rights norms and mechanisms,
and international security or justice
interventions
• Knowledge-sharing with or emulation of fellow
authoritarian states regarding tactics and legislation
to enhance domestic control
China and Russia
The two major modern authoritarian powers are China
and Russia.
Until fairly recently, the conventional wisdom was that
China’s one-party authoritarian system would gradually
relax as the middle class expanded and the country
became fully integrated into the global economic
and diplomatic systems. The leadership did expand
citizens’ freedom to travel, make money, and access
information and entertainment that did not touch on
sensitive subjects. But it has resolutely refused to give
up control over the political sphere.
In fact, the state has become increasingly aggressive
in its suppression of political dissent and information
that might challenge the Communist Party narrative.
The regime’s rhetoric and policies have become more
hostile to democracy and “Western” values. Its propaganda
asserts the superior efficiency of the one-party
system and sneers at the messiness of democracy.
And the focus of its repressive apparatus has steadily
expanded from a relatively narrow segment of political
opposition figures to encompass a broad collection of
target groups, including human rights lawyers, ethnic
minorities, Christians, women’s rights advocates, liberal
academics, and independent journalists.
Russia is much smaller than China in terms of population
and economic might, but it has emerged as
a leader of modern authoritarian innovation. Under
Vladimir Putin, the Russian regime pioneered the
capture of the media through state enterprises and
oligarchic cronies, the adoption of laws designed to
dismember civil society, the use of the judiciary as
an instrument of political harassment, and, perhaps
most importantly of all, the development of modern
propaganda and disinformation.
Russia has also been in the vanguard of a relentless
campaign against liberal values, and has moved
relentlessly to export authoritarian ideas and techniques
to other societies, both in neighboring
6
Freedom House
Eurasian countries and elsewhere in the world. While
today there is nothing that resembles the Comintern
of Soviet times, authoritarian countries have developed
an ad hoc network of cooperation that has
proven effective at the United Nations and in regional
bodies like the Organization of American States.
Adapting to survive
Modern authoritarianism matured as regimes sought
to defend themselves against the sorts of civil society
movements that triggered “color revolutions” in
Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere in the early 2000s.
On their own, formal opposition parties were relatively
easy to marginalize or co-opt, and traditional mass
media could be brought to heel through pressure on
private owners, among other techniques. But civil
society organizations presented a formidable challenge
in some settings, as they were able to mobilize
the public—especially students and young people—
around nonpartisan reformist goals and use relatively
open online media to spread their messages.
It is now a major objective of modern authoritarian
states to suppress civil society before it becomes
strong enough to challenge the incumbent political
leadership. Yet whereas dissidents were dispatched
to the gulag or explicitly exiled by the Soviets, or jailed
and murdered by traditional dictatorships like Augusto
Pinochet’s Chile, today’s activists are checked by
NGO regulations that control registration and foreign
funding, laws that allow arbitrary restrictions on public
protest, and trumped-up criminal charges for key
organizers that serve to intimidate others.
Modern authoritarianism has also devised special
methods to bring the internet under political control
without shutting it down entirely. While old-style dictatorships
like Cuba long prevented the widespread
use of the internet out of fear that online communications
would pose a threat to the state’s monopoly
on information, modern authoritarians understood
that a high rate of internet penetration is essential to
participation in the global economy. However, once
online media emerged as a real alternative to traditional
news sources and a crucial tool for civic and
political mobilization, these regimes began to step up
their interference.
The Chinese government has developed the world’s
most sophisticated system of internet controls. Its socalled
Great Firewall, a censorship and filtering apparatus
designed to prevent the circulation of information
that the authorities deem politically dangerous
without affecting nonsensitive information, requires
tremendous financial, human, and technological resources
to maintain. Other regimes have not attempted
anything approaching the scale of China’s system,
but some have constructed more limited versions or
simply relied on inexpensive offline techniques like
arrests of critical bloggers, direct pressure on the
owners of major online platforms, and new laws that
force internet sites to self-censor.
Alternative values
While modern authoritarians initially mobilized for
defensive purposes, to thwart color revolutions or
the liberal opposition, they have become increasingly
aggressive in challenging the democratic norms that
prevailed in the wake of the Cold War, and in setting
forth a rough set of political values as an alternative
to the liberal model. Examples of this phenomenon
include:
1. Majoritarianism: A signal idea of many authoritarians
is the proposition that elections are
winner-take-all affairs in which the victor has an
absolute mandate, with little or no interference
from institutional checks and balances. Putin,
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the
Venezuelan chavista leadership all behave as
if there are no valid controls on their authority,
the opposition has no rights, and the system
is theirs to dismantle and remake from top to
bottom. Disturbingly, the leaders of some democratic
societies have begun to embrace the
majoritarian idea. The Hungarian prime minister,
Viktor Orbán, has instituted a thorough overhaul
of the country’s constitution and national legislation
with an eye toward measures that will
insulate his party from future defeat.
2. Sovereignty: A number of governments have
invoked the doctrine of absolute sovereignty
to rebuff international criticism of restrictions
on the press, the smothering of civil society,
the persecution of the political opposition, and
the repression of minority groups. They claim
that the enforcement of universal human rights
standards or judgments from transnational legal
bodies represent undue interference in their
domestic affairs and a violation of national prerogatives.
3. Dictatorship of law: Initially articulated by Vladimir
Putin, this phrase has come to signify the
adoption of laws that are so vaguely written as to
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
give the authorities wide discretion in applying
them to regime opponents. Such measures are
typically paired with a court system that uses law
merely to justify political instructions from the executive
branch, making a mockery of due process
and international conceptions of the rule of law.
4. History revised: A number of countries have undertaken
a refashioning of history to buttress the
legitimacy and aims of the current government.
Historians and journalists are forbidden to cross
certain redlines set by the authorities. In China,
the state has prevented the publication of full,
accurate, or critical accounts of the Great Leap
Forward, the Cultural Revolution, or the Mao Zedong
era in general. In Russia, Joseph Stalin has
been rehabilitated. He is now officially portrayed
as a strong if mildly flawed leader rather than as
the man responsible for the deaths of millions of
his own people. In Turkey, Erdoğan has decreed
that high school students should study the defunct
Ottoman language, challenging a nearly
century-old reform linked to Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk, modern Turkey’s founder. 4
5. Democracy redefined: It is a testament to the
power of the democratic idea that authoritarian
leaders around the globe have claimed the mantle
of democracy for forms of government that
amount to legalized repression. Even as they
heap disdain on the liberal order, they have often
insisted on the validity of their own systems
as types of democratic rule. They even devise
terms to describe their special variant, such as
“sovereign democracy,” “revolutionary democracy,”
or “illiberal democracy.”
6. Return of the leader for life: Among the changes
invariably instituted by modern authoritarians is
the de facto or de jure removal of constitutional
limits on presidential terms. Preventing the
concentration of power in a single leader is a
fundamental goal of democratic governance, but
authoritarian propaganda has presented term
limits as artificial constraints, associated them
with foreign origins, and claimed that they do
not suit every country’s unique historical, cultural,
or security conditions.
While these ideas may not amount to a coherent
or complete ideology, they do form the basis for an
impressive degree of collaboration and alliance-building
that has brought together modern authoritarian
regimes with significantly different economic systems,
official creeds, and sources of political legitimacy.
A loose-knit league of authoritarians works to protect
mutual interests at the United Nations and other international
forums, subverting global human rights standards
and blocking precedent-setting actions against
fellow despots. With the formation of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, Russia, China, and a number
of Central Asian governments have come together to
discuss common regime-security strategies. 5
More disturbingly, modern authoritarians collaborate
to prop up some of the world’s most reprehensible
regimes, apparently reasoning that the toppling of
one dictator thins the herd, inspires imitation, and
endangers them all. This is most visible in Syria, where
Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela at various times
have offered diplomatic support, loans, fuel, or direct
military aid to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Dashed hopes
Democracy recorded unprecedented gains during the
20th century’s last decades. In 1975, Freedom House
found that just 25 percent of the world’s sovereign
states qualified for the Free category; by 2000, the
share of countries rated as Free had reached 45
percent. 6
The numbers told an optimistic story, and a series of
accelerating social trends suggested that the recent
improvements would hold firm and expand as the new
millennium dawned.
There was, to begin with, a strong identification of free
societies with free markets. The degree of economic
freedom varied from one society to the next, and
corruption was a problem in practically all of the new
democracies. But there was no longer a major bloc of
countries that rejected capitalism, and practically every
country sought to deepen their participation in the
global economic system, as witnessed by the number
of governments seeking admission to the World Trade
Organization. Authorities in the United States and
elsewhere predicted that as countries came to accept
the rules of the game set down by the WTO, they
would also be more amenable to accepting the norms
of liberal democracy, including fair elections, freedom
of expression, minority rights, and the rule of law.
A second development was the introduction of the internet
and other digital media. In the wake of the collapse
of the Soviet Union, communist governments in
8
Freedom House
Eastern Europe, and military dictatorships elsewhere,
there was an explosion of newspapers, radio and
television stations, and other independent media with
diverse editorial policies. But the internet in particular
was seen as an irresistible force that could render
censorship of any kind impossible. In 2000, President
Bill Clinton compared China’s efforts to control internet
content to “trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.” 7
Third, a growing number of experts began to identify
a new instigator of democratic change in global civil
society. Unlike the “people’s movements” of earlier
decades, in which well-known leaders mobilized mass
demonstrations and often insurrectionary violence
with the goal of overthrowing despotic regimes, the
phenomenon that was labeled civil society consisted
of organizations that were often committed to a single
cause or a few causes united by a particular theme.
Most activists were young, with little prior involvement
in politics, and many regarded themselves as part of
a global effort to advance goals like reducing carbon
emissions, empowering women, or fighting corruption.
In a prescient 1997 article, Jessica T. Mathews predicted
that in the future global civil society would be the
triggering force behind liberal change. 8 She suggested
that in many cases civil society organizations would
play a more important role than governments. Her
words seemed prescient in light of later events in
Serbia, where student activists organized a campaign
that eventually brought about the downfall of President
Slobodan Milošević in 2000, and in Ukraine, where
young reformers played a pivotal role in ensuring that
the 2004 elections were not stolen through fraud.
In declaring that dictatorships or even authoritarian
methods were destined to succumb to this triad of
new social forces, commentators were also expressing
optimism about the universal appeal of liberal
values. The decade after the end of the Cold War
was a heyday for democratic ideas and norms. It was
increasingly expected that countries would not only
hold elections, but that their elections would meet
international standards and be judged “free and fair.”
There was also an expectation that political parties
would be able to compete on a reasonably level
playing field, that opposition leaders would not be
harassed or arrested, and that minorities would be
able to pursue their agendas through normal political
channels and not find it necessary to wage perpetual
protest campaigns.
However, there were nagging questions. It remained
unclear whether most societies would have access to
multiple sources of political ideas, multiple interpretations
of the news, and open scholarly inquiries about
the past. Would there be honest judicial proceedings,
especially in cases with political implications? Would
property rights be secure?
Beyond these primarily domestic issues, there was
another series of questions related to individual
governments’ relations with their neighbors and the
rest of the world. The end of the Cold War had brought
a peace dividend, both financial and psychological,
for all sides. At the time, most assumed that peace
would prove durable. But would the general decline
in military budgets hold? Would the new national
boundaries that divided the former Soviet Union and
the former Yugoslavia be sustainable?
As modern authoritarianism has taken root and expanded
its influence, the answers to these questions
are increasingly negative.
1. Freedom in the World 2016 (New York: Freedom House, 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ceylan Yeginsu, “Turks Feud Over Change in Education,” New York Times, December 8, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/
world/europe/erdogan-pushes-ottoman-language-classes-as-part-of-tradtional-turkish-values.html.
5. Eleanor Albert, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 14, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/
china/shanghai-cooperation-organization/p10883.
6. “Freedom in the World at 41,” in Freedom in the World 2014 (New York: Freedom House, 2014), https://freedomhouse.org/sites/
default/files/Freedom%20in%20the%20World%202014%20Booklet.pdf.
7. “China’s Internet: A Giant Cage,” Economist, April 6, 2013, http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21574628-internetwas-expected-help-democratise-china-instead-it-has-enabled.
8. Jessica T. Mathews, “Power Shift,” Foreign Affairs (January/February 1997), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1997-01-01/
power-shift.
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
Chapter 1
Validating Autocracy through the Ballot
A major difference between modern authoritarian
systems and traditional dictatorships lies in the role of
elections for parliament and head of state.
Twentieth-century dictatorships often dispensed with
elections entirely or conducted them under blatantly
fraudulent conditions. In the Soviet bloc, elections
were a pointless ritual in which citizens were pressured
to go to a polling place and cast ballots for the
Communist Party candidate, the only one permitted to
compete. Military and postcolonial dictatorships often
canceled elections on spurious “national emergency”
grounds, or rigged the outcome through crude ballot-stuffing
and open intimidation.
“We’re not perfect. But we do have
democracy.”
—Hugo Chávez
“Yes, we falsified the last election.…
In fact, 93.5 percent [of ballots were]
for President Lukashenka. People
say this is not a European result, so
we changed it to 86 percent.”
—Alyaksandr Lukashenka
At a certain point in the 1980s, however, the strongmen,
juntas, and revolutionary councils of the era
realized that reasonably fair elections could no longer
be avoided. Sometimes a ruling group understood
that this would likely lead to an opposition victory. But
usually, the incumbent leaders—and often foreign
journalists and diplomats—presumed that voters in
repressive settings preferred stability to uncertainty
and would opt for the reassuring faces of authority.
These calculations proved wildly misplaced. Opposition
parties swept to victory in country after country—in
Uruguay, Argentina, Nicaragua, South Korea,
the Philippines, Poland. The word “stunning” made
a frequent appearance in news accounts, as in the
stunning rejection of the ruling party in Poland, or the
stunning setback suffered by Chile’s Augusto Pinochet
in a referendum on the continuation of his dictatorship.
Or, perhaps most astonishing, the stunning
defeat of Communist Party stalwarts in a number of
Soviet cities in 1990 local elections. 1
Elections became a key force behind the wave of democratization
that engulfed much of the world during
that decade. Today, the obligation to hold some form of
multiparty balloting is felt by nearly all governments.
The illusion of pluralism
Yet just as with other democratic institutions, modern
authoritarians have mastered the techniques of control
over the electoral process, maintaining political
dominance behind a screen of false diversity.
They have adapted in many ways to the age of the internet
and the expectations of a better-informed public. In
the most sophisticated authoritarian states, professional
political operatives—in Russia they are called
“political technologists”—work just as hard as their
counterparts in the United States. Their goal, however,
is not to defeat opposition candidates in a competitive
setting, but rather to organize a system that creates the
illusion of competition while squelching it in reality.
In most countries, elections are largely “free and fair,”
meaning the playing field is reasonably level, there is an
honest tabulation of the ballots, vote buying and ballot
stuffing do not change the outcome, and independent
election observers are allowed to monitor the proceedings.
For 2015, Freedom in the World placed the number
of electoral democracies at 125, around 64 percent
of the world’s sovereign states. 2 By historical standards,
this is an impressive figure. Still, there are 70 countries
that do not qualify as electoral democracies. In all but
a few of these settings, elections are indeed held, but
they are either badly flawed or patently dishonest.
Yet even in systems where elections are tainted or fixed
outright, authoritarian leaders often claim legitimacy
from the ballot box. Of the countries assessed in this
study, only China rejects elections as part of the leadership’s
strategy for political control. In Russia, Turkey, Venezuela,
and elsewhere, the leadership invokes victory at
the polls as a mandate for government, including the
adoption of policies that are in fact deeply unpopular.
In some authoritarian states, elections are neither free
nor fair, with heavy manipulation that directly ensures
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Freedom House
the ruling party’s dominance. But in other settings, elections
are held under conditions that are relatively free
but effectively unfair. That is, the electoral playing field
is tilted to favor the incumbents, though the balloting
itself is not fixed and remains somewhat unpredictable.
In illiberal environments like Hungary and Turkey over
the past five years, prospects for an opposition victory
are remote, but not out of the question. Even in a quasi-dictatorship
like Venezuela, the opposition can score
impressive victories in parliamentary elections and mobilize
competitive campaigns for the presidency.
A display of supremacy
In December 2011, members of the Russian opposition
obtained video evidence of ballot stuffing committed by
operatives from Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party in
that month’s parliamentary elections. A series of unusually
large protests ensued. Putin weathered the furor and
went on to win a presidential poll the following year. But
for a brief period, Putin lost control of Russia’s political
narrative and was placed on the defensive. He seemed
angry and rattled, and subsequently blamed the turmoil
on the United States, claiming that statements by then
secretary of state Hillary Clinton were meant as a signal
to the opposition to launch a color revolution in Russia.
(The theme of Clinton as the puppet master behind
a plot aimed at regime change in Russia was revived
during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when the
Russian media displayed a clear preference for Republican
candidate Donald Trump and disdain for Clinton. 3 )
For Putin, the events of late 2011 and early 2012 were
evidence of weakness and political incompetence. A
ruling party whose triumph requires that party members
be ferried by bus from one voting district to another
to cast multiple ballots is, by today’s authoritarian
standards, a party that has grown careless and lazy.
Authoritarian rulers today seek to fix outcomes well
before election day through laws and policies that embed
unfairness at every level.
These leaders take a measure of pride in election victories,
even if the results were secured through dishonest
methods. They are held up as demonstrations of political
mastery rather than neutral measurements of public
preference. Putin’s victories at the polls enable him
to reject comparisons with Leonid Brezhnev and other
doddering, defensive Soviet-era leaders. Likewise, Hugo
Chávez boasted that unlike the colonels and generals
who ruled over South American dictatorships during
the 20th century, his tenure as president of Venezuela
was sanctified by no fewer than 17 elections, including
a number of referendums. Chávez won all but one. 4
There are, of course, examples of elections whose outcome
resembles the obviously rigged results in totalitarian
or junta-like settings. Eurasian presidents such
as Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev and Belarus’s Alyaksandr
Lukashenka have repeatedly won elections with over
80 percent of the vote, and others have easily broken
the 90 percent barrier. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won every
seat in the most recent parliamentary polling. 5
However, more sophisticated autocracies try to
manage elections so as to maintain a pluralist façade
and hide evidence of systematic fraud or intimidation.
In Russia, nominal opposition parties usually garner a
significant share of parliamentary seats. But all defer
to Putin as the country’s unchallenged leader and
typically vote according to his wishes on key issues. 6
Genuine opposition forces that seek to win political
power are not tolerated, particularly if they champion
liberal values. Putin has long sought to prevent
the rise of a democratic opposition that could raise
embarrassing questions about systemic corruption,
foreign interventions, or economic stagnation.
State media and state resources
Predetermining ballot results depends both on the
rules and regulations that govern the administration
of elections and on the regime’s control of other assets
that can influence the outcome.
Control of the media is crucial. The methods of modern
censorship are examined in more detail in another
section of this report. But when a would-be authoritarian
leader assumes power, one of the first goals is
to secure domination over whichever sector of the
media has the greatest impact on public opinion and
therefore on voting behavior.
The first clear indicator of Putin’s authoritarian bent was
his aggressive move to eliminate independent ownership
of Russia’s major television stations. Through various
forms of intimidation, the new president persuaded
private media moguls to surrender ownership to the
state, state-owned corporations, or political cronies.
Television thus became a propaganda vehicle for Putin
and a potent weapon against his critics, who have
since been mocked, vilified, or ignored on the nation’s
most important medium. All this occurred within a few
years after his election as president in 2000.
In Venezuela, Chávez used his authority over media
licensing to destroy Radio Caracas Television (RCTV),
a popular broadcast station that was aligned with the
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
opposition. Other critical voices in television and print
media later faced legal suits, regulatory harassment,
and withdrawal of advertising revenue until the owners
agreed to sell their holdings to business interests
that were on more friendly terms with the regime. 7
A prominent theme that runs through authoritarian
media is the imperfect nature of electoral processes
in the leading democracies, especially the United
States. The goal is less to portray elections in Russia,
Venezuela, or Iran as paragons of democratic practice
than to muddy the waters—to make the case that
countries like the United States have no right to lecture
others on democracy, and that perhaps all elections
are equally flawed. The Kremlin’s chief propagandist
described the 2016 U.S. election as “so horribly
noxious that it only engenders disgust towards what is
still inexplicably called a ‘democracy.’” 8
A second important instrument in authoritarians’
election toolbox is the state itself. During his period
as Venezuela’s president, Chávez became a master
at using state money and manpower to ensure voter
loyalty. In the 2012 election, the last before his death,
Chávez is estimated to have invested billions of dollars
in state resources, including giveaways of household
goods to ordinary citizens, in a rather unsubtle
vote-buying campaign.
That election vividly illustrated the powerful interplay
of state media and state resources in undemocratic
settings, and it is worth examining in greater detail. Superficially,
it seemed reasonably consistent with democratic
standards. The voting itself took place without
serious violence or major complaints of irregularities.
But to a substantial degree, the results were shaped by
the regime’s actions well before the ballots were cast.
Chávez had by that time secured an iron grip on the media.
Through the state or political allies, he controlled six
of the eight national television stations and about half
of the country’s radio stations. In some regions, he commanded
a virtual information monopoly. The opposition
was effectively shut out of the Chávez-aligned outlets,
earning mention only as cartoonish villains.
The incumbent benefited especially from a practice
whereby all radio and television stations are obliged to
preempt normal programming to accommodate the
president’s speeches to the nation. During 2012, Chávez
took advantage of this tool to fill 100 hours of broadcasting,
47 of them in the 90 days prior to the election. Aurelio
Concheso, an analyst with Transparency Venezuela,
placed the value of this free airtime at $1.8 billion. Another
government mandate required radio and television
stations to broadcast 10 state messages of 30 seconds
each on a daily basis; the messages, not surprisingly,
dovetailed with the arguments of the Chávez campaign.
Concheso estimated the value of this free airtime at
$292 million. In addition, the government spent an estimated
$200 million on advertising with private radio
and television stations. By contrast, the opposition had
access to five minutes of airtime a day, at a cost of $102
million. The opposition was thus limited to an incredible
4 percent of the airtime enjoyed by Chávez.
Meanwhile, according to Concheso, the state oil company
spent some $20 billion on gifts of home durable
goods, apartments, and outright cash subsidies to
purchase the allegiance of Venezuelan voters and
underscore the message that without Chávez, this
largesse would dry up.
Finally, a measure of fear was introduced through a
campaign suggesting that although the balloting was
secret, the government had ways of ascertaining a
voter’s choice. The threat had a special effect given
public memories of an episode in 2004, in which those
who signed a petition for a referendum to remove
Chávez from office were blacklisted and excluded
from government jobs, benefits, and contracts.
Favored tactics
The following are among the other tactics deployed by
modern authoritarians to ensure success at the polls:
1. Intimidating the opposition: Opposition leaders
are only occasionally targeted for assassination.
But they can face a variety of other cruel fates.
Wealthy businessman and opposition supporter
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was dispatched to a Russian
prison for 10 years for daring to challenge
Putin. In 2017, anticorruption campaigner Andrei
Navalny, widely regarded as the most serious
challenger to Putin, was effectively eliminated
from the 2018 presidential contest after being
convicted in a trumped-up embezzlement case. 9
In Malaysia, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim
has twice been convicted and jailed on sodomy
charges. Prominent political figures have also
been jailed in Belarus, Venezuela, Iran, Ethiopia,
Turkey, and Egypt, among many others. Human
rights activists and bloggers are also subject to
harassment and persecution. They are frequently
jailed on trumped-up charges of defamation,
tax fraud, or drug trafficking, among others.
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Freedom House
2. Marginalizing the opposition: As noted above,
authoritarian leaders use their media power to
paint critics as knaves or buffoons. Especially
through television coverage, opposition figures
are presented as clownish, effeminate, shady,
elitist, or enslaved by foreign interests. The message
is pounded home day after day, until the
image of the opposition as small and unfit to
rule is fixed in the public’s mind.
3. Tolerating the pseudo-opposition: Having jailed,
exiled, or silenced potentially competitive opposition
figures, authoritarians tolerate nominal opposition
parties that are effectively controlled by
the regime. These groups have accepted the supremacy
of the incumbent leadership and settled
into their roles in a stage-managed democracy.
4. Criminalizing protest: The crippling of formal
opposition parties leads many voters to channel
their dissent into loosely organized civic
activism, often relying on protests to mobilize
support and reach the broader public despite
state control of the media. Authoritarian governments
have responded by adopting harsher laws
on public assembly, enabling them to jail protest
leaders and even ordinary participants for
vaguely defined offenses like disturbing public
order and gathering without a permit. Protesters
can also be imprisoned on trumped-up charges,
such as assaulting a police officer or possessing
a weapon. This discourages others from joining
the civic movements and prevents them from
growing into organized political forces.
5. Discarding term limits: Term limits designed
to prevent the concentration of power in one
individual have been rolled back, circumvented,
or removed altogether in Venezuela, Nicaragua,
Bolivia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and many
other countries over the past 15 years. 10 Endless
incumbency denies opposition forces an opportunity
to win over both voters and elements of
the ruling establishment that may be ready for
new leadership. It also promotes personal loyalty
at the expense of public service, stunts the
development of possible successors, reinforces
the impression that only the current leader is fit
to govern, and feeds a self-perpetuating fear of
political change.
Returning to old habits
While modern authoritarian regimes have generally
maintained some illusion of pluralism as one of their
main concessions to the post–Cold War international order,
a number of governments have been less attentive
to this priority, drifting back toward the electoral tactics,
and lopsided results, of 20th-century dictatorships.
In Belarus, the election of just two members of the
opposition to the rubber-stamp parliament in 2016 was
actually regarded as a step forward from the 2004, 2008,
and 2012 balloting, in which no opposition candidates
won seats. Lukashenka, in power since 1994, was
accused of directing an assassination squad prior to the
2001 presidential election. Four politicians and journalists
who had been critical of the incumbent disappeared
prior to the vote. After Lukashenka won another term in
a deeply flawed 2010 election, the authorities arrested
over 700 protesters, including seven of the nine opposition
presidential candidates. The regime later sentenced
three of the former candidates to prison terms. 11
Ethiopian opposition members were beaten and arrested
during the 2015 electoral campaign. The Semayawi
Party reported that more than 50 of its members were
arrested ahead of the polls, and nearly half of Semayawi
candidates were deregistered on administrative
grounds. The ruling EPRDF and its allies took all 547
seats in the lower house. The 2010 elections were also
tightly controlled, with local officials or neighborhood
militia going door to door and verifying that residents
had registered as members of the EPRDF. Voters were
threatened with the loss of their jobs, homes, or government
services if they did not turn out for the party.
The most charismatic opposition figure, the leader of
the Unity and Justice Party, Birtukan Mideksa, remained
in prison during the election, in which opposition
candidates took only two seats. 12
The possible motivations for retrograde electoral abuses
vary from country to country, but authoritarians
may feel emboldened to drop their quasi-democratic
camouflage due to the lack of diplomatic repercussions
for such actions. The European Union and the
United States have criticized Belarus as “Europe’s last
dictatorship,” but they always seem willing to give Lukashenka
another chance to improve relations based
on the thinnest hopes of reform. Democratic powers
have treated Ethiopia as a counterterrorism ally and a
model of rapid economic development, granting it billions
of dollars in foreign assistance.
Elections and democratic renewal
Whether through blatant repression or less obvious
methods, modern authoritarians seek to control the
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
outcome of elections. They need to hold votes to validate
their rule, but they also recognize the risk involved,
as elections remain a potent instrument of democratic
renewal even in deeply troubled societies.
The events of late 2014 and 2015 include vivid reminders
of the power of the ballot. In Nigeria, Africa’s
most populous country and largest economy, voters
who were fed up with governmental complacency,
terrorism, and graft rejected the incumbent president,
Goodluck Jonathan, and elected Muhammadu Buhari
to replace him. In Myanmar, a huge turnout produced
an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections for
longtime opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her
National League for Democracy (NLD), a remarkable
turnaround in a country that until recently ranked
among the world’s most repressive.
Voters in Sri Lanka ousted their increasingly authoritarian
and divisive president, Mahinda Rajapaksa,
in favor of Maithripala Sirisena. Upon taking office,
Sirisena immediately overturned some of Rajapaksa’s
repressive policies and began repairing relations with
both the country’s Tamil minority and the international
community. And in Argentina, opposition candidate
Mauricio Macri won the presidency by defeating the
nominee of incumbent Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
who with her late husband, Néstor Kirchner, had
dominated the executive branch for over a decade.
Combined with a victory for the democratic opposition
in Venezuela’s parliamentary elections, Macri’s
victory may have been the beginning of a rollback of
Latin America’s populist movements, which had previously
made impressive gains across the region. 13
Voters in these countries retained faith in the democratic
process even after experiencing hardship after hardship,
including military rule (Myanmar), civil war and authoritarian
rule (Sri Lanka), a terrorist scourge (Nigeria),
economic collapse and political repression (Venezuela),
and economic setback and unaccountable government
(Argentina). They prevailed despite, in some cases, an
electoral playing field tilted sharply against the opposition;
in other cases, a history of political violence; and in
still other cases, apprehensions about what lies ahead
when dictatorships give way to normal politics.
Some of these voters were also rejecting political
figures who had publicly disdained the world’s democracies
and drawn closer to authoritarian powers like
Russia, China, and Iran. They were willing to listen to
candidates who talked about the rule of law, freedom
of expression, and the right to be free of payoffs and
bribes, and they were unimpressed by those who
blamed every step backward on foreign plots.
There will always be dictators and would-be leaders
for life who grow overconfident, lose touch with the
mood of their people, and fail to do what it takes to
ensure victory at the polls, as apparently occurred in
The Gambia in late 2016. But the rest can be expected
to learn from such mistakes and invest the necessary
resources in a false mockery of democratic suffrage.
1. Arch Puddington, “The Rise of Virtual Elections,” Freedom at Issue, October 10, 2014, https://freedomhouse.org/blog/rise-virtual-elections.
2. Freedom in the World 2016 (New York: Freedom House, 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016.
3. See, among others, Steve Rosenberg, “Russian Media’s Love Affair with Trump,” British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), November
2, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37837432.
4. Javier Corrales, “Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2 (April 2015): 37–51, http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Corrales-26-2.pdf.
5. “Ethiopia,” in Freedom in the World 2016.
6. “Russia,” in Freedom in the World 2016.
7. “Venezuela,” in Freedom of the Press 2015 (New York: Freedom House, 2015), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/venezuela.
8. “Whoever Wins the American Presidential Election, Russia Comes Out Ahead,” Economist, November 8, 2016, http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21709892-americas-campaign-has-served-vladimir-putins-purpose-discrediting-democracy-whoever-wins.
9. Neil MacFarquhar and Ivan Nechepurenko, “Aleksei Navalny, Viable Putin Rival, Is Barred from a Presidential Run,” New York Times,
February 8, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/world/europe/russia-aleksei-navalny-putin.html?_r=0.
10. Farid Guliyev, “End of Term Limits,” Harvard International Review, February 28, 2009, http://hir.harvard.edu/end-of-term-limits/.
11. “Belarus,” in Freedom in the World 2011 (New York: Freedom House, 2011), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2011/
belarus.
12. “Ethiopia,” in Freedom in the World 2016; “Ethiopia,” in Freedom in the World 2011 (New York: Freedom House, 2011), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2011/ethiopia.
13. “Anxious Dictators, Wavering Democracies,” in Freedom in the World 2016.
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Chapter 2
Propaganda at Home and Abroad
The following propositions have all appeared in the
Russian media over the past few years:
• The United States hired Islamic State terrorists
to sabotage the Russian commercial airliner that
was destroyed after takeoff in the Sinai in 2015.
• A three-year-old boy was crucified by the U.S.-
backed Ukrainian army in Slovyansk in 2014.
• The United States is planning a major war in Europe
to enable Washington to cancel its national
debt.
• The downing of the Malaysian airliner over
eastern Ukraine in 2014 was in fact the central
ingredient in an elaborate, American-driven plot
to place blame on Russia.
• American policies will lead to a global “homosexual
sodomite tsunami.”
This is just a small sample of similar claims or conjectures
that have made their way into Russian news coverage,
especially in the wake of Moscow’s occupation
of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. They stand
as a reminder that under Vladimir Putin, the Russian
media environment has been transformed from one
marked by vibrancy and diverse opinions (if not high
professional standards) to one dominated by blatant
propaganda on the most sensitive international topics
of the day.
The basic regime narrative of U.S.-led conspiracy is
applied to a broad set of themes: depression in oil
prices, downgrading of Russia’s credit ratings, political
change in Ukraine, Russia’s Olympics doping scandal.
Every problem, Russians are told, is due to American
plots and maneuvers.
Press freedom and democracy
A free press ranks among the most critical institutions
of liberal democracy. Among the reforms introduced
by Mikhail Gorbachev in his campaign to modernize
the Soviet system, glasnost, or openness, played the
most important role in challenging the decades-old
system of Soviet totalitarianism. Something similar
can be said of press freedom initiatives in other new
democracies during the latter part of the 20th century,
“If the 20th century was defined by
the battle for freedom of information
and against censorship, the 21st
century will be defined by malevolent
actors, states or corporations,
abusing the right to freedom of
information for quite other ends.”
—Vasily Gatov, media analyst
“Information wars have already
become standard practice and the
main type of warfare. The bombers
are now sent in after the information
campaign.”
—Dmitry Kiselyov, chief Russian propaganda strategist
particularly in postcommunist societies where strict
press censorship had prevailed for years. Even if the
professionalism and ethical standards of journalism
in those countries were not always up to the highest
levels, the fact that the press spoke with different
voices, different opinions, and even different biases
was a huge step toward a world in which democracy
was the norm.
Authoritarians push back
It is precisely because of press freedom’s central
importance to democracy that the new generation of
authoritarian leaders has made its annihilation a top
priority. However, modern authoritarians recognize
that the methods of the print and analog broadcast
era—prepublication censorship and stilted, formulaic
propaganda—were no longer viable in the age of
digital media and globalization.
At a minimum, governments that sought involvement
in the world economy found it advisable to tolerate a
measure of openness about budgets, economic data,
and those aspects of social life that are critical for
international business. Authoritarian leaders thus face
the dilemma of retaining domination over the political
story while permitting a degree of accurate information
about economic affairs.
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
Furthermore, because the population now has greater
access to foreign sources of news and entertainment,
regimes must grapple with the complex task of
monopolizing the political discourse in ways that are
far more convincing and compelling than the robotic
pronouncements that played such a crucial part in
communism’s loss of credibility.
As is the case with so much of modern authoritarian
practice, Russia has taken the lead in developing strategies
and methods of media domination. The system
built under Vladimir Putin is defined by the following
characteristics:
1. Control over the commanding heights of the
media: Among Putin’s first goals as president
was securing domination of the most influential
media—the national television stations. They
had been controlled by various oligarchs, who
used the outlets to promote their personal and
political interests. While the resulting journalism
was hardly objective and independent, Russian
television and Russian media generally were notable
for their liveliness and diversity during the
presidency of Boris Yeltsin. All did not sing out
of the same hymnal, and most influential outlets
reflected a variety of opinions about government
policies, including the Kremlin’s conduct of the
war in Chechnya.
Putin moved quickly to change these conditions.
He reorganized and exerted tighter political control
over state-owned television stations, brought
others under indirect state control, and ensured
that most of the remainder fell into the hands
of loyal businessmen. Likewise, a number of the
country’s leading newspapers and journals were
bought by cronies of the leadership. The era of
media diversity came to an abrupt end. 1
2. Distortion of coverage on sensitive topics: Unlike
in communist times, the media do provide
independent coverage of topics that the Kremlin
considers less politically relevant. However,
some normally apolitical topics can take on a
highly political meaning. For example, coverage
of the penalties meted out to Russian Olympic
athletes for systematic doping reflected the
leadership’s position that the scandal was a
product of American machinations. 2
3. Shrinking gap between offline and online media:
For much of Putin’s tenure, the internet
remained lightly regulated in comparison with
the Kremlin’s tight control over television and
other mass media. However, Freedom House
has noted growing restrictions over the past
several years, with a series of new laws, prosecutions,
and ownership changes that have reduced
the Russian internet’s freedom and diversity in
practice. 3
4. A small stable of independent outlets: A token
number of media outlets are allowed to remain
independent at the sufferance of the Kremlin.
These include the newspaper Novaya Gazeta,
the indirectly state-owned radio station Ekho
Moskvy, and a handful of internet-based news
services, some of which are forced to operate
from neighboring countries. Coerced ownership
changes and other forms of pressure have
gradually reduced the already tiny independent
media sector in recent years. And the remaining
independent outlets have little reach, small audiences,
and at best modest impact on domestic
politics.
5. The ‘weaponization’ of information: While Putin
has used the press as a propaganda instrument
throughout his political career, it was after his
third term as president began in 2012 that the
media were given a special, central role in demonizing
Putin’s critics, preparing the Russian
people for armed conflict in Ukraine and elsewhere,
depicting Europe as morally corrupt, and
attributing Russia’s problems and setbacks to
the United States. 4 With the invasion of Ukraine
in 2014, the world awakened to the return of
propaganda as an instrument of warfare. This is
not just normal political spin or public diplomacy,
but sheer, raw propaganda that deliberately
crosses the line between interpretation of facts
and outright mendacity. The aim is both to stir
up belligerence at home and to isolate, confuse,
and demoralize the enemy. 5
6. The centralization of information policy: The
creation in 2013 of Rossiya Segodnya, an umbrella
organization for Moscow’s foreign news services,
signaled the leadership’s intention to use
information in a more strategic way to advance
the country’s international objectives. Dmitry
Kiselyov, a controversial television presenter,
was named to head the new entity. 6 He actually
embraces his identity as the Kremlin’s chief
propagandist, arguing that “Western” concepts
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of journalistic neutrality are fraudulent and
self-serving. There is, he contends, no difference
between his role and the role of a chief editor of
Reuters or the Associated Press. In one interview,
Kiselyov equated those two news services
with Rossiya Segodnya: “Both are propaganda
agencies—they shape the dominant narrative
and tell their audiences what and how to think.”
He continued: “In today’s world, information—
how it is gathered, analyzed, interpreted and
processed … pushes a value system, certain
views on good and evil, and shapes attitudes to
different events.” 7
7. The irrelevance of truth: “For the Soviets, the
idea of truth was important—even when they
were lying,” Peter Pomerantsev has written. “Soviet
propaganda went to great lengths to ‘prove’
that the Kremlin’s theories or bits of information
were fact.” By contrast, in today’s Russia the idea
of truth is seen as irrelevant and “the borders
between fact and fiction have become utterly
blurred.” Pomerantsev quotes Russia’s deputy
minister of communications as admonishing
journalism students at Moscow State University
to forget about high ideals. “We should
give students a clear understanding: They are
going to work for The Man, and The Man will tell
them what to write, what not to write, and how
this or that thing should be written.” 8 Russian
propaganda outlets, especially RT, derive their
influence from a clever blend of act and faction,
mixing reports on genuine events with exaggerations,
biased coverage, and outright lies. And
this mixture of fact and fiction is presented with
modern production techniques that mimic credible
outlets like the BBC.
Propaganda works
The idea that governments can influence events
through propaganda once seemed far-fetched in the
internet age. Developments in Ukraine, however, have
spurred a reassessment of propaganda’s role in setting
the stage for intervention abroad and repression at
home.
According to numerous accounts in the international
media, many Russians believe that the Ukrainian government
is responsible for massive war crimes, including
the crucifixion of small children and the downing
of the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet. 9 Many of the
wildest assertions have been reinforced by altered or
repurposed images that allegedly depict Ukrainian
atrocities but actually show events in Mexico, Syria,
Iraq, or other zones of civil conflict. Ordinary Russians
and many Ukrainian consumers of Russian media
have told foreign journalists of fears that “fascism” has
come to power in Ukraine. 10
In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, the Ministry
of Truth advanced what today would be called a regime
narrative, with accounts of never-ending conflict
abroad and treasonous enemies within. In similar
fashion, though with considerably more finesse and
sophistication than was described in Orwell’s masterpiece,
Russian media today preach a strident message
of external encirclement by Russophobes in Ukraine,
the Baltics, Georgia, and elsewhere, and internal
fifth-columnists among bloggers, civil society organizations,
and advocates of gay rights.
The media in democracies, especially in Europe,
proved unprepared for the deluge of Russian propaganda
during and after the seizure of Crimea. Putin
was thus able to drum home the portrayal of Ukraine
as a “divided state” or an “artificial state,” labels that
could be attached to many sovereign nations, Russia
included. 11 Few were ready to mount a challenge
to the Russian proposition that Ukraine’s status
was unique, and was a legitimate cause for Russia’s
concern and even a justification for war. The Russian
propaganda machine also zeroed in on Ukraine’s supposed
lack of respect for minority rights, a problem
that Moscow had not raised during the administrations
of Viktor Yanukovych or Leonid Kuchma. Neither
Ukrainians nor informed observers in the outside
world believed that Ukraine was faced with a civil war.
This was entirely a creation of Moscow’s propaganda
and active intervention. 12
Russia’s government is not alone in its use of propaganda
to further its interests. But it is uniquely aggressive
in pressing the dominant theme of the moment
and the most effective in mimicking the idioms of
modern commercial media while doing so. Furthermore,
as the country faces serious decay in economic
and other material terms, the Kremlin sees success
in the war of information as critical to Russia’s identity
as a great power. Other authoritarian regimes will take
note of Russia’s successes, and act accordingly.
In past eras, dictators’ instrument of choice was censorship.
However, people understood that they were
being cheated when the authorities banned books
and prosecuted those who possessed “unauthorized
literature.” Under a modern propaganda regime,
www.freedomhouse.org
17
BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
alternative perspectives are permitted on a carefully
rationed basis. But dissenting opinions are invariably
subjected to relentless attack and ridicule, and
the dissidents themselves face a form of character
assassination in which their views are twisted to make
them appear foolish, extreme, unpatriotic, or immoral.
Christopher Walker, a vice president at the National
Endowment for Democracy who has written extensively
on modern authoritarianism, believes that control
of information is the most important achievement
of today’s generation of autocrats:
I think modern authoritarians have been
adept at adjusting to the new environment.
They recognize that trying to control the
wealth of information out there is impossible,
and therefore they don’t try. There are
a number of countries which have found
effective ways to incorporate entertainment
and culture into their media offerings while
keeping domination over the political sphere.
They have thus defied the assumptions we
held 20 years ago when the internet was
emerging. The conventional wisdom then
was that the internet guaranteed media
diversity, and there is no way regimes could
keep the genie in the bottle. In fact, in many
countries authoritarians have kept the genie
in the bottle through managing the political
narrative and denying people access to key
information. 14
Walker’s comments certainly apply to conditions in Russia.
During the communist period, Soviet propaganda
was meant to justify both state socialism and Russia’s
isolation from the global economic system and Western
culture. In Russia, China, and elsewhere, it is now possible
for citizens to enjoy the latest international music,
fashion, and entertainment while hating the liberal
values that are systematically disparaged in the media.
What is tragic about all this is that Russians already
came through a decades-long period of propaganda
in which reality was twisted and lies circulated as a
conscious matter of national policy. Orwell and other
foes of totalitarian rule sought to describe the danger
that propaganda and censorship posed to knowledge,
reality, and independent thought. But instead of
things getting better after the demise of totalitarianism,
a newer and in some ways more insidious form of
information control has emerged, one which does not
so much try to persuade people that the government
line is the only correct line, but that facts do not exist
as such and nothing can be believed.
China: 21st-century censorship
The Chinese model of information control differs in
crucial ways from the propaganda methods favored by
Russia. Especially in its policies towards the internet,
China focuses its energies on preventing access to information
or news on a wide and perpetually evolving
range of subjects that the ruling Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) regards as sensitive.
Under Xi Jinping, who took power in late 2012, the
government has been much more open in arguing for
the right of the political leadership to censor internet
content. He has, in fact, launched a campaign designed
to radically redraw the global rules on internet
freedom so as to enshrine the concept of “internet
sovereignty,” according to which individual countries
would “independently choose their own path of cyber
development” and “model of cyber regulation.” 15
In late 2015, Xi also made the baffling statement,
“Freedom is what order is meant for, and order is
the guarantee of freedom.” 16 Over the next several
months, regulators moved to enforce the president’s
vision for tighter CCP control over all news media and
imposed rules that further restricted the production
of independent news content by online outlets. 17
Perhaps most important have been the threats to the
livelihood and personal liberty of bloggers and online
commentators. In recent years, the state has pursued
a campaign of arrest, prosecution, and public humiliation
directed against well-known microbloggers
and other media personalities, including a series of
televised “confessions.” The machinery of repression
was directed against those who had used their platforms
to criticize the leadership or its policies, and to
a disturbing extent, the effort has been successful in
silencing such criticism.
Among other recent developments in the CCP’s censorship
drive:
• The authorities have punished journalists
for publishing news about the economy that
highlighted negative trends, and issued media
directives aimed at shaping coverage of economy-related
topics. The economy was the second
most censored topic in China in 2015, a year
that featured a dramatic stock-market crash and
slowing economic growth. 18
18
Freedom House
• Chinese censors sent out guidelines listing subjects
that should not be covered or not covered
in a negative way during parliamentary sessions
in 2016. Included on the list were the wealth
of parliamentary delegates, military budgets,
compliance with international human rights
conventions, air pollution, church demolitions,
and jokes about parliamentarians’ proposals. 19
• Censorship officials quashed coverage of the
“Panama Papers,” the trove of documents leaked
in 2016 that listed the offshore holdings of the
global elite, including the relatives of top Chinese
officials. 20
• China added Time and the Economist to the list
of blocked media websites in 2016, apparently
in retaliation for articles that were critical of Xi
Jinping’s accumulation of power. 21
• In February 2016 visits to China Central Television
(CCTV), the Xinhua news agency, and
the People’s Daily newspaper—the flagships of
the party and state media—Xi admonished the
assembled journalists to give absolute support
to the party leadership and later declared that
all media should “have the party as their family
name.” 22
While critical voices can still be found on the internet,
the authorities have been highly successful in
suppressing material that might lead to any broad
form of online protest or collective action. In addition
to intrusive laws and regulations, the regime deploys
armies of paid and volunteer commentators to flood
social media with progovernment remarks, influence
online discussions, report or attack those who make
antigovernment comments, or sow confusion about
particular incidents that might reflect poorly on the
leadership. 23
The overall goal of this strategy is to weaken the
internet’s potential as a mobilizing force for critics or
reformers. Indeed, after years of intense pressure, the
medium is drawing closer to Xi Jinping’s ideal of an
internet that is “clear and bright.” 24
Global reach
Both Russia and China have launched ambitious and
expensive projects to expand the reach of propaganda
and censorship beyond their borders. Russia’s project is
better known due to RT, a global television network that
is available to foreign audiences in a number of languages
and through many cable packages. Russia has
also launched Sputnik, an international news service,
in multiple languages. These outlets tend to be more
effective than China’s at imitating the production styles
and intentionally contentious formats now employed
by many major outlets in democratic countries.
The degree to which RT and other arms of the Russian
global media apparatus actually influence the debate
about Russia is unclear. RT makes grandiose claims
of high viewership, but some analysts believe that its
audience in the United States and elsewhere is much
lower than asserted, and that its sizeable audience on
YouTube may be inflated by enticing video clips with
little political relevance. 25
When it was launched in 2005, RT’s programming
stressed the achievements of Russia and the strong
leadership of Vladimir Putin. Subsequently, the focus
changed to negative messages about the West,
especially the United States. Programs have chronicled
American poverty, inequality, political hypocrisy,
racial injustice, and other real or perceived flaws. The
network often promotes conspiracy theories about
everything from the destruction of New York’s World
Trade Center in 2001 to America’s alleged role as puppet
master behind the Ukrainian protest movement of
2013–14. 26
Superficially, China’s overseas propaganda efforts
seem less aggressive. While Beijing has greatly expanded
the capacity of CCTV’s international broadcasts
and opened media offices around the globe,
the news content is less polemical and therefore less
interesting than that of RT.
But the CCP’s ultimate objectives may actually be far
more ambitious. Rather than engaging, like Russia, in
what amount to guerrilla-style attacks on mainstream
news and information abroad, the Chinese regime is
using its superior economic muscle to steadily gain
control over how China is depicted in news coverage
and popular culture in the rest of the world, and to
establish something of a consensus on the idea of a
“sovereign internet.”
Its various tactics include state pressure on foreign
correspondents tasked with informing the world
about developments in China: Those who are too critical
or too aggressive in conducting investigations into
sensitive matters may find their visas revoked, their
outlet’s website blocked, and their employers placed
in a sort of political purgatory. 27
www.freedomhouse.org
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
The CCP has also asserted control over news outlets
in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese diaspora communities
around the world. 28 Beijing has used pressure
tactics and exerted influence through intermediaries
to change editors or owners of critical outlets in
Hong Kong. 29 Wealthy progovernment forces from the
mainland have begun to buy up media outlets in Hong
Kong and elsewhere. 30 And there have been instances
in which businessmen with economic interests in
China have attempted to expand their media holdings
in Taiwan. 31
Perhaps more disturbing is China’s effort to purchase
influence in global culture through its state-affiliated
and nominally private companies. For example, Visual
China Group, a mainland company, has purchased
the image and licensing division of Corbis, a company
that controls a huge archive of historically important
photographs. The trove includes iconic photographs
of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations,
which CCP censors have worked hard to keep out of
the Chinese media. Those involved in the sale offered
assurances that the new owners would not hinder the
global circulation of politically sensitive images, but
there is little to prevent them from casting aside such
pledges at some future date. 32
Another Chinese company, Dalian Wanda Group,
has raised concerns with its rapid incursions into the
U.S. film industry. Already the world’s largest owner
of cinemas, including the second-largest U.S. theater
chain, Wanda purchased Legendary Entertainment, a
production company, in 2016 and is said to be interested
in gaining control of a major Hollywood studio.
American lawmakers were sufficiently disturbed by
Wanda’s initiatives to request a Justice Department investigation.
There is concern that China’s companies,
with state encouragement, are pursuing influence in
Hollywood to ensure a favorable depiction of China
and its CCP regime in major films. 33 Even with studios
under U.S. ownership, the international media have
repeatedly uncovered cases in which U.S. filmmakers
altered elements of their work to address or anticipate
the objections of Chinese censors, who serve as gatekeepers
to the country’s lucrative domestic market. 34
Exploiting democratic culture for authoritarian ends
Ironically, some products of democratic culture have
facilitated the work of modern authoritarian propagandists.
The notion that there is no such thing as
objective truth and that history is nothing more than a
contest of competing narratives owes its popularity to
radical theorists who have gained a strong foothold in
academia and even among some who call themselves
journalists, such as Glenn Greenwald.
While accusations that the press is biased or publishes
lies are common in American political campaigns,
the hysterical charges hurled by Donald Trump against
the media during the 2016 presidential campaign
served to reinforce the Kremlin’s model of a world in
which the truth is determined by power rather than
impartial investigation.
Moscow especially makes shrewd use of an unfortunate
journalistic habit in which evenhandedness—a
worthy goal when presenting two sides in a genuine
debate—is improperly applied, so that patently false
assertions are treated as symmetrical with legitimate
views or facts.
Many outside Russia would not disagree with Kiselyov’s
dismissive views on the concept of impartial
reporting. In meeting the challenge of authoritarian
propaganda, a good place to start would be a reaffirmation
of the central role occupied by high-quality,
traditional journalism in democratic societies.
1. See for example “Russia,” in Freedom of the Press 2004 (New York: Freedom House, 2004), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2004/russia.
2. Christopher Walker and Robert Orttung, “Russia’s Media Autarky Strengthens Its Grip,” Real Clear World, November 30, 2014, http://
www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/11/30/russias_media_autarky_110826.html.
3. “Russia,” in Freedom on the Net 2016 (New York: Freedom House, 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2016/russia.
4. Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss, The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money
(New York: Institute of Modern Russia, 2014), http://www.interpretermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/The_Menace_of_Unreality_Final.pdf.
5. Ibid.
6. “From Burning Hearts to Civil Unions: The Unlikely Evolution of Dmitry Kiselyov,” Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, June 30, 2015,
http://www.rferl.org/a/dmitry-kiselyov-civil-unions-lgbt-unlikely-evolution/27102541.html; Joshua Yaffa, “Dmitry Kiselev Is Redefining
the Art of Russian Propaganda,” New Republic, July 1, 2014, https://newrepublic.com/article/118438/dmitry-kiselev-putins-favorite-tv-host-russias-top-propogandist.
20
Freedom House
7. “Dmitry Kiselev: ‘Western Behavior Borders on Schizophrenia,’” Sputnik, April 5, 2014, https://sputniknews.com/analysis/20140405189054528-Dmitry-Kiselev-Western-behavior-borders-on-schizophrenia/.
8. Peter Pomerantsev, “Russia and the Menace of Unreality,” Atlantic, September 9, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/
archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/.
9. Editorial Board, “Putin’s Propaganda Keeps Russians in the Dark about Ukraine and More,” Washington Post, August 31,
2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/putins-propoganda-keeps-russians-in-the-dark-about-ukraine-andmore/2014/08/31/6ba4114a-2fc5-11e4-9b98-848790384093_story.html?utm_term=.835f55ca0486.
10. Janina Semenova, “Behind Russia’s TV Propaganda Machine,” Deutsche Welle, February 9, 2015, http://www.dw.com/en/behind-russias-tv-propaganda-machine/a-18689297.
11. Alexander Motyl, “Is Russia Artificial?” World Affairs, November 7, 2014, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/
russia-and-ukraine-artificial-or-authentic.
12. Halya Coynash, “Russia Continues Its False Narrative as Defender of Oppressed Minorities in Ukraine,” Human Rights in Ukraine,
March 29, 2014, http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1396038633.
14. Interview with author.
15. “China Touts Its Great Firewall in Push for Internet Control,” Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/
china-touts-its-great-firewall-in-push-for-internet-control-1450251090.
16. Tom Phillips, “China’s Xi Jinping Says Internet Users Must Be Free to Speak Their Minds,” Guardian, December 16, 2015, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/16/china-xi-jinping-internet-users-freedom-speech-online.
17. “Xi Jinping Visits Flagship State Media, Lays Out Vision for Party Control,” China Media Bulletin no. 113 (March 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/china-media/china-media-bulletin-issue-no-113-march-2016;
“New Rules Clamp Down on Online News,” China
Media Bulletin no. 116 (September 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/china-media/china-media-bulletin-issue-no-116-september-2016.
18. “China’s Most Censored News Topics in 2015,” China Media Bulletin no. 111 (January 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/china-media/china-media-bulletin-issue-no-111-january-2016.
19. Didi K. Tatlow, “What Chinese Media Mustn’t Cover at the ‘2 Sessions,’” New York Times, March 9, 2016, http://www.nytimes.
com/2016/03/10/world/asia/china-news-censorship-two-sessions.html.
20. Michael Forsythe and Austin Ramzy, “China Censors Mentions of ‘Panama Papers’ Leaks,” New York Times, April 5, 2016, http://
www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/world/asia/china-panama-papers.html.
21. Emily Feng, “China Blocks Economist and Time Websites, Apparently over Xi Jinping Articles,” New York Times, April 8, 2016, http://
www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/world/asia/china-blocks-economist-time.html.
22. Edward Wong, “Xi Jinping’s News Alert: Chinese Media Must Serve the Party,” New York Times, February 22, 2016, http://www.
nytimes.com/2016/02/23/world/asia/china-media-policy-xi-jinping.html.
23. “China,” in Freedom on the Net 2016 (New York: Freedom House, 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2016/china.
24. David Bandurski, “How Xi Jinping Sees the Internet,” China Media Project, December 9, 2015, http://cmp.hku.
hk/2015/12/09/39451/.
25. Katie Zevadski, “Putin’s Propaganda TV Lies About Its Popularity,” Daily Beast, September 17, 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/
articles/2015/09/17/putin-s-propaganda-tv-lies-about-ratings.html.
26. Neil MacFarquhar, “A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories,” New York Times, August 28, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden-disinformation.html.
27. PEN America, “New PEN America Report Shows Growing Pressure on Foreign Correspondents to Bias Coverage in China,” news
release, September 22, 2016, https://pen.org/press-release/2016/09/22/new-pen-america-report-shows-growing-pressure-foreign-correspondents-bias.
28. Sarah Cook, The Long Shadow of Chinese Censorship: How the Communist Party’s Media Restrictions Affect News Outlets around
the World (Washington: Center for International Media Assistance, 2013), http://www.cima.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/
CIMA-China_Sarah%20Cook.pdf.
29. Michael Forsythe and Alan Wong, “Timing of Editor’s Firing Has Hong Kong Worried about Press Freedom,” New York Times, April 20,
2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/world/asia/hong-kong-ming-pao-editor.html.
30. David Barboza, “Alibaba Buying South China Morning Post, Aiming to Influence Media,” New York Times, December 11, 2015, http://
www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/business/dealbook/alibaba-scmp-south-china-morning-post.html.
31. Ben Goren, “China’s Influence on Taiwan’s Media,” Chinet, June 23, 2014, http://chinet.cz/reviews/contemporary-china/chinas-influence-on-taiwans-media/.
32. Mike McPhate, “With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company,” New York Times, January 27, 2016,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/business/media/with-corbis-sale-tiananmen-protest-images-go-to-chinese-media-company.html.
33. Michael Forsythe, “Justice Dept. Is Asked to Review Chinese Company’s Hollywood Purchases,” New York Times, October 7, 2016,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/world/asia/us-hollywood-dalian-wanda.html.
34. Clare Baldwin and Kristina Cooke, “How Sony Sanitized the New Adam Sandler Movie to Please Chinese Censors,” Reuters, July 24,
2015, http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-film/.
www.freedomhouse.org
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
Chapter 3
The Enemy Within: Civil Society at Bay
Among the more surprising developments in
21st-century politics are the reversals experienced by
civil society, once regarded as an irresistible force in
the global struggle for democracy.
According to Freedom in the World, the ability of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other
civil society institutions to function without state restrictions
has suffered a pronounced decline over the
past decade. The setbacks have been concentrated in
authoritarian states like Russia, China, Venezuela, and
Iran. But civil society has also met with growing problems
in democracies—India and Indonesia among
them—and in settings where democracy’s prospects
are unclear, as with Ecuador, Hungary, and Kenya.
The growing offensive against civil society is in many
respects a tribute to the prominent role that NGOs
have come to play in the political life of most countries.
An active civil society is often seen as a formidable
threat to a repressive or illiberal status quo. Civil
society was the linchpin in the successful popular
revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia. In fact,
civil society organizations frequently pose a greater
threat to autocracy than do traditional opposition parties,
which have proven relatively easy for determined
strongmen to sideline, neutralize, or co-opt. Civil society
movements, by contrast, are generally composed
of younger activists, committed to a cause, more
resilient, more agile, and less prone to corruption.
To be sure, even some authoritarian states can boast
of an active and growing civil society sector consisting
of humanitarian organizations, religious entities,
conservation groups, associations focused on public
health or development, and so forth. It is with the
NGOs that pursue politically sensitive objectives—human
rights advocacy, democratic reform, or anticorruption
measures—that oppressive leaders have
serious differences. Especially in countries where
elections have been rendered meaningless, civil society
groups can become surrogates for a democratic
opposition, and are therefore regarded with deep
suspicion by the leadership.
The specter of ‘color revolution’
The term “color revolution” emerged in 2003–05 to
describe a phenomenon whereby an existing political
leadership is overthrown by a popular movement
”Countries in western Asia and
northern Africa, Ukraine and Thailand,
which have experienced street
protests and even armed conflicts,
have been led astray to the wrong
path of Western-style democracy,
that is, ‘street politics.’… The United
States and some Western forces
have been involved in the street
politics in these countries, either on
stage or behind the scenes.”
—Xinhua, paraphrasing an editorial by Mi Bohua of the
People’s Daily
“In the modern world, extremism is
being used as a geopolitical instrument
and for remaking spheres of
influence. We see what tragic consequences
the wave of so-called color
revolutions led to…. We should do
everything necessary so that nothing
similar ever happens in Russia.”
—Vladimir Putin
using tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience.
Successful nonviolent democratic revolutions are not
new. Perhaps the first color revolution took place in
1974, when a dictatorship in Portugal was overthrown
by military officers who drew on the support of civilian
democracy advocates. Later peaceful revolutions
overcame authoritarian regimes in the Philippines,
South Korea, Chile, and Poland.
In the 21st century, however, the definitive events
behind the new label took place in Georgia (2003) and
Ukraine (2004–5). Both countries were governed by
politicians with close ties to Moscow who were either
personally corrupt or tolerated high levels of graft.
In the Ukrainian elections of 2004, there was strong
evidence of rigging to ensure the victory of Viktor Yanukovych,
the candidate of the pro-Russian old guard.
22
Freedom House
Tightening the Screws: The Kremlin’s Legal Campaign against Civil Society
l JANUARY 2006: Amendments to Certain
Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation
This law gave authorities the power to deny
registration to organizations that “threaten”
Russia, bar foreigners from opening
organizations, subject foreign funding to more
scrutiny, and make the founding and operation of
organizations excessively burdensome, including
by imposing frequent audits and reporting
requirements.
l JULY 2012: Amendments to the Law on
Noncommercial Organizations, the Criminal
Code, the Law on Public Associations, and the
Law on Combating Money Laundering and the
Financing of Terrorism
This package of measures, which included
the provision known as the “foreign agents
law,” required nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) that receive foreign funding and carry
out broadly defined “political activity” to register
with the Justice Ministry and meet onerous
requirements, including filing quarterly financial
reports, submitting to annual and unscheduled
audits, subjecting foreign donations to
monitoring, and marking all publications and
events with the “foreign agent” label. Penalties
for noncompliance include fines, suspension
of funds, and imprisonment of personnel.
Other amendments penalized creating and
participating in “illegitimate” groups and groups
that urge citizens to shirk their civic duties or
perform other illegal acts.
l FEBRUARY 2014: Amendments to the Law on
Noncommercial Organizations
This change greatly expanded the list of reasons
for unannounced audits of NGOs.
l JUNE 2014: Amendments to the Law on
Noncommercial Organizations
Enacted to strengthen enforcement of the
foreign agents law, this legislation authorized
the Justice Ministry to register NGOs as foreign
agents without their consent and without a court
order, and shifted the burden of proof to NGOs,
compelling them to go to court to fight the label.
l MAY 2015: Amendments to Certain Legislative
Acts of the Russian Federation
Known as the “undesirable organizations
law,” this package of changes empowered the
prosecutor general to shut down or restrict the
activities of NGOs that are deemed “undesirable,”
vaguely defined as groups that pose “a threat
to the foundation of the constitutional order of
the Russian Federation, the defense capability
of the country, or the security of the state.”
The amendments bar such organizations from
opening delegate offices, carrying out programs,
and promoting their activities in Russia, and
subject collaborators with these NGOs to
possible fines and imprisonment.
l JUNE 2016: Amendments to the Law on Public
Associations and the Law on Noncommercial
Organizations
This legislation revised the loose definition of
“political activity” under the foreign agents law,
but rather than narrowing the meaning of the
term, it applied the law’s restrictions to any
activity aimed at influencing the government
or public opinion. That could include opinion
surveys, monitoring of government agencies’
performance, analysis of laws or policies, and
petitions or other communications aimed at
government officials.
Confronted by mass demonstrations, the authorities
ordered a rerun. The candidate of the reformist
Orange coalition won that election, which was widely
seen as free and honest.
The Orange Revolution was to have far-reaching repercussions.
While democracies celebrated the outcome,
repressive regimes reacted with alarm. The concerns
expressed by Russian officials were soon echoed
in China, Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and
other authoritarian countries. Vladimir Putin spoke
of the color revolution as the latest form of American
interventionism, and began a process of restricting
Russian NGOs that was to reach a climax a decade
later.
Yanukovych eventually won the presidency in a 2010
comeback, but a second protest-driven revolution
www.freedomhouse.org
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
in Ukraine, the Maidan uprising of 2013–14, forced
him to flee to Russia after a bloody crackdown failed
to disperse the demonstrators. Among other things,
the episode shattered the old political establishment,
which had been more or less equally divided between
parties that were friendly to Russia and parties that
favored independence from the Kremlin and an
orientation toward Europe. For the foreseeable future,
pro-Russian parties were unlikely to play a major role
in Ukrainian political life.
Russia responded by seizing and illegally annexing
Crimea and fomenting a frozen conflict in eastern
Ukraine. But the Kremlin also stepped up its campaign
to demonize color revolutions more broadly as America’s
favored instrument of regime change, though no
serious evidence of U.S. involvement in the Maidan
revolution was put forward. The color revolution threat
became a major theme of Russian domestic propaganda
and political discourse. It even became a focus
of the country’s military planning.
When speaking of color revolutions, Russian officials
and commentators have struck several common
themes:
1. Color revolutions are a U.S. strategy to break
Russia’s influence over its neighbors. 1 Nikolay