Is the money that authoritarians allocate for image
beautification well spent? Some campaigns have been
more successful than others, but autocracies that
hire well-known former cabinet secretaries or elected
officials to defend or deny their acts of repression often
fail to sway either the public or the policy community
in the United States. If democratic leaders have not
mounted adequate responses to such repression, it is
generally because of other strategic concerns or simple
neglect, not because lobbyists have persuaded them
that the regime in question is benevolent and just.
Authoritarian efforts to change governments, as
opposed to perceptions, may ultimately prove more
rewarding. Russia’s wager on the rise of friendly
European populist parties already seems to be paying
off. After Britain’s vote to withdraw from the EU and
the triumph of Donald Trump in the United States,
the prospect of radical shifts in global politics can no
longer be dismissed as unthinkable.
1. Brian Whitmore, “Vladimir Putin, Conservative Icon,” Atlantic, December 20, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/vladimir-putin-conservative-icon/282572/?single_page=true.
2. Ivo Oliveira, “National Front Seeks Russian Cash for Election Fight,” Politico, February 19, 2016, http://www.politico.eu/article/lepen-russia-crimea-putin-money-bank-national-front-seeks-russian-cash-for-election-fight/.
3. Andrew Higgins, “Far-Right Fever for a Europe Tied to Russia,” New York Times, May 20, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/
world/europe/europes-far-right-looks-to-russia-as-a-guiding-force.html?_r=0.
4. Susi Dennison and Dina Pardijs, “The World according to Europe’s Insurgent Parties: Putin, Migration and People Power,” European
Council on Foreign Relations, June 27, 2016, http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/the_world_according_to_europes_insurgent_parties7055.
5. Krisztina Than, “Special Report: Inside Hungary’s $10.8 Billion Nuclear Deal with Russia,” Reuters, March 30, 2015, http://www.
reuters.com/article/us-russia-europe-hungary-specialreport-idUSKBN0MQ0MP20150330.
6. Dennison and Pardijs, “The World according to Europe’s Insurgent Parties.”
7. “Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Speech at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp,” Website of the Hungarian
Government, July 26, 2014, http://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/prime-minister-viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-25th-balvanyos-summer-free-university-and-student-camp.
8. Dennison and Pardijs, “The World according to Europe’s Insurgent Parties.”
9. Ibid.
10. Jason Karaian, “Putin Has Friends on Europe’s Far Right and Left (but Mostly Right),” Quartz, January 15, 2015, http://
qz.com/326487/putin-has-friends-on-europes-far-right-and-left-but-mostly-right/.
11. Amber Phillips, “Paul Manafort’s Complicated Ties to Ukraine, Explained,” Washington Post, August 19, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/19/paul-manaforts-complicated-ties-to-ukraine-explained/.
12. Steven Lee Myers and Andrew E. Kramer, “How Paul Manafort Wielded Power in Ukraine Before Advising Donald Trump,” New York
Times, July 31, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/us/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html.
13. Ibid.
14. Engen Tham and Matthew Miller, “Exclusive: Beijing Auditions Foreign Public Relations Firms to Polish China Brand,” Reuters, April
22, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pr-exclusive-idUSKCN0XJ007.
15. Arch Puddington, “Paul Manafort Is the Tip of the Iceberg,” Freedom at Issue, August 18, 2016, https://freedomhouse.org/blog/
paul-manafort-tip-iceberg; Ilya Lozovsky, “How Azerbaijan and Its Lobbyists Spin Congress,” Foreign Policy, June 11, 2015, http://
foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/11/how-azerbaijan-and-its-lobbyists-spin-congress/.
16. Ken Silverstein, “How Bahrain Works Washington,” Salon, December 8, 2011, http://www.salon.com/2011/12/08/how_bahrain_
works_washington/; Akbar Shahid Ahmed, “How Wealthy Arab Gulf States Shape the Washington Influence Game,” Huffington
Post, September 2, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/arab-gulf-states-washington_us_55e62be5e4b0b7a9633ac659.
17. Lachlan Markay, “State-Owned Venezuelan Oil Firm Spends Millions on U.S. Lobbying,” Washington Free Beacon, June 6, 2016,
http://freebeacon.com/issues/state-owned-venezuelan-oil-firms-spends-millions-u-s-lobbying/.
18. Ben Schreckinger and Iulia Ioffe, “Lobbyist Advised Trump Campaign While Promoting Russian Pipeline,” Politico, October 7, 2016,
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264.
19. Brian Rohan, “Egypt’s Mukhabarat Hires Washington Lobbyists to Boost Image,” Associated Press, March 5, 2017, http://bigstory.
ap.org/article/d8d55dbbcedb4e589d33555cc5fa8855/egypts-general-intelligence-registers-washington-lobbyist.
20. Theodoric Meyer, “Flynn Lobbied for Turkish-linked Firm after Election, Documents Show,” Politico, March 8, 2017, http://www.
politico.com/story/2017/03/michael-flynn-lobby-turkey-235843.
21. Ben Stewart, “When Russia Declared War on Greenpeace: The Story of the Arctic 30 Captured on a Gazprom Drilling Platform and
Sentenced to Years in Jail,” Independent, April 11, 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/when-russia-declaredwar-on-greenpeace-the-story-of-the-arctic-30-captured-on-a-gazprom-drilling-10170138.html.
22. Andrew Higgins, “Russian Money Suspected Behind Fracking Protests,” New York Times, November 30, 2014, http://www.nytimes.
com/2014/12/01/world/russian-money-suspected-behind-fracking-protests.html.
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Chapter 7
Bullying the Neighbors: Frozen Conflicts,
the Near Abroad, and Other Innovations
Vladimir Putin’s publicists have used the phrase
“sovereign democracy” to describe the political
system that evolved in Russia under his leadership. 1
In practice, however, Putin’s regime respects neither
democracy nor sovereignty.
Sovereign democracy bears no more resemblance to
the unmodified original than did previous variants:
guided democracy, managed democracy, people’s
democracy. Nor does sovereign democracy represent
a genuine commitment to the notion of national
sovereignty, as countries on the Russian periphery
will attest. On repeated occasions, Putin has demonstrated
a readiness to intervene in the affairs of nearby
countries by fomenting ethnic discontent, undermining
the economy, or grabbing territory.
Putin has in effect set down a doctrine of limited
sovereignty for Russia’s neighbors, especially those
that were part of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin’s
tactics are meant to keep these countries fearful and
off balance. The instruments of choice range from
the nonviolent, such as destabilizing propaganda and
economic pressure, to the lethally aggressive, such as
proxy insurgencies and outright invasion.
The following are the main techniques employed by
the Kremlin to influence the actions of its neighbors:
1. Civil society and ‘traditional values’: The Kremlin
has funded and encouraged pro-Russian civil
society organizations in neighboring states to
build influence among local populations and
promote its policies and interests. The Russian
government has also exploited its partnership
with the Orthodox Church to present itself as a
champion of “traditional values,” and to portray
opponents—including human rights activists
and European democracies—as purveyors of
hedonism and immorality. 2
“Certainly within the next four to five
years [Russia] will have the ability
to conduct operations in eastern
Ukraine and pressure the Baltics
and pressure Georgia and do other
things, without having to do a full
mobilization.”
—U.S. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges
3. The energy weapon: At various times during Putin’s
tenure, Russia has sought to use its oil and
natural gas exports as a means of disciplining
Ukraine and other neighbors. It has raised and
lowered prices for political reasons, abruptly
halted deliveries in the dead of winter, and manipulated
pipeline routes and investments to
drive a wedge between Germany and other European
powers on one side and the Baltic states
and Ukraine on the other.
4. The trade weapon: Russia has invoked dubious
health concerns and other pretexts to block
the import of products from countries whose
governments displease Putin, including Georgia,
Moldova, and Poland, as well as the European
Union (EU) as a bloc. 3
5. Cyberwarfare: Russian-backed hackers are
widely believed responsible for a powerful 2007
cyberattack on government websites in Estonia
in the wake of a controversy over the removal of
a war memorial. Other countries in the region
have since suffered similar attacks, particularly
Ukraine following the 2014 ouster of President
Viktor Yanukovych and Russia’s invasion of
Crimea and the Donbas.
2. Propaganda offensives: The Kremlin has made
powerful use of Russian-language media, especially
state-controlled television stations, to
spread disinformation and foment discontent
among ethnic Russians in the Baltics, Ukraine,
Moldova, and elsewhere.
6. Military threats: In the wake of the Ukraine invasion
and subsequent sanctions, the Russian military
launched a series of military exercises on
its borders with the Baltic states and intensified
more distant patrols that tested the readiness of
a number of European navies and air forces.
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
7. Military invasions: Russian forces poured into
Georgia through its two breakaway territories,
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, during a brief conflict
in 2008. In 2014, Russian troops occupied
Crimea, oversaw a stage-managed referendum
on annexation there, and unofficially entered
eastern Ukraine en masse to support a supposedly
indigenous rebellion by ethnic Russian
separatists.
8. Frozen conflicts: The term “frozen conflict” indicates
a condition in which active fighting has
ended or subsided but there is no peace agreement
beyond a tenuous cease-fire. Under Putin,
Russia has perpetuated or created frozen conflicts
that affect Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova,
Georgia, and Ukraine. In each case, the Kremlin
retains for itself the capacity to subdue or escalate
tensions as needed to maximize its political
influence over the relevant country.
Moscow applies these tactics according to its objectives
for a particular country or region. For nearby EU
and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member
states, the goal is to remind local political leaders
that Russia can play a disruptive role, and to inject a
measure of fear into foreign policy calculations. While
the Kremlin holds out the possibility of military invasion
as an option, its preference thus far has been to
promote instability and uncertainty.
Russia’s message is meant both for the target country
and for its more distant allies. The target country is
effectively warned that challenging Russian interests
could provoke serious reprisals. For allies like the United
States, Britain, or Germany, the message is that
solidarity with the target country could entail a heavy
cost, including the possibility of a shooting war in
which they are obliged to defend small NATO member
states like Estonia and Latvia.
The ‘Russian world’
A favorite theme of Kremlin propaganda is the socalled
Russian world, a cultural or civilizational space
that extends beyond Russia’s political borders. This
deliberately flexible and nebulous concept suggests
that Russia claims the right to intervene wherever its
perceived brethren—ethnic Russians, other Russian
speakers, Orthodox Christians—are under threat.
Putin has spoken of one million Russians cut adrift by
the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has said it is his obligation
to protect these people, and he has tried to appeal
to them through culture, history, and the media. His
press spokesman, Dmitriy Peskov, has said that “Russia
is the country that underlies the Russian world, and the
president of that country is Putin; Putin precisely is the
main guarantor of the security of the Russian world.” 4
In 2014, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin
dredged up the tsarist-era term Novorossiya to describe
a large swath of southeastern Ukraine that he
hinted might be annexed. Suddenly, the Novorossiya
idea began appearing in Russian media, complete
with maps, while Russian-backed separatists moved
to write the “history” of the region into textbooks. 5
Eventually Putin dropped Novorossiya from his
speeches, having successfully stoked fears that the
Ukraine conflict could widen beyond Crimea and
the Donbas. The international community was then
apparently meant to feel grateful that Russian forces
did not press their attack any further.
In practice, Putin has invoked the idea of a greater
Russian world to intimidate only countries that have
embraced democracy and seek closer ties to the EU
and NATO. He has shown little interest in ethnic Russians
and other residents in Central Asian states like
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, even though they suffer
under political conditions that Freedom House ranks
as among the least free in the world. 6
The case of Estonia
Throughout its history, Estonia has been fought over by
Russia and European powers to the west. During World
War II, it was occupied by the Red Army and forcibly
annexed to the Soviet Union. Its elites and intellectuals
were murdered or deported to the Soviet gulag, and the
Estonian people endured over four decades of Sovietization
and Russification, including a policy of encouraging
Russian speakers to relocate to Estonia.
The country regained its independence in 1991 with
the disintegration of the Soviet Union. From early on,
relations between the ethnic Estonian majority and the
sizeable ethnic Russian minority have been difficult.
Estonia has adopted citizenship laws that require many
ethnic Russians to pass an Estonian language test,
and they complain of being treated as second-class
citizens. In opinion surveys, however, Russian speakers
show little enthusiasm for becoming citizens of Russia,
and have indicated an appreciation for the access to
Europe that citizenship in an EU country confers. 7
There are an estimated 300,000 ethnic Russians in
Estonia. Approximately three-quarters get their news
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Freedom House
through Russian television stations. On a daily basis,
they are exposed to propagandistic programs in which
the EU is demonized, NATO is treated as an aggressor,
the democracies on Russia’s borders are presented as
enemies, and the annexation of Crimea is hailed as a
milestone in the rebuilding of a great Russian state. 8
By exploiting the tensions that already exist between
Estonia’s ethnic communities, the Kremlin has sought
to turn a complex problem into something combustible.
The tendency of Russian speakers and ethnic
Estonians to live in parallel universes is exacerbated
by Russian propaganda, which depicts the Estonian
political leadership as hostile to Russians and as
members of a cosmopolitan European elite that
promotes sexual degeneracy and cultural radicalism.
Moscow also tries to create distrust of the Baltic
states among their NATO allies by depicting them as
overly emotional, irresponsible, and intent on dragging
other countries into a conflict with Russia.
There is no strong evidence that Russian speakers in
Estonia are simply embracing the Russian explanation
of things. Instead, they tend to reject both Russian
and Estonian sources of information. This is in itself
a victory of sorts for Russia, since the goal of external
Russian propaganda is less to win people over to its
way of thinking than to sow confusion and mistrust.
Moscow’s interests are served so long as Estonian society
remains divided. As a report on the integration of
Russian speakers in Estonia concluded, “They [ethnic
Estonians and Russian speakers] reside in separate information
spaces and hold divergent perceptions and
perspectives not just about each other, but also about
the Estonian state and its history, its threat environment,
and its national security policies. Since these
two Estonias do not fully trust one another, when
security developments put pressure on the country
they tend to drift to opposing poles—especially if the
factor of Russia is involved.” 9
A wolf in sheep’s clothing
In their campaign to assert control over countries on
Russia’s periphery, Kremlin officials have not hesitated
to use traditional authoritarian methods, up to and
including military invasion and the creation or support
of proxy insurgents. But they have taken care to
defend their efforts in terms meant to appeal to, or at
least confuse, democratic audiences.
This is especially the case with propaganda broadcasts.
While the Russian government has sought to prevent
foreign news services like Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty from reaching the Russian people, it expects
its own broadcasts to remain unhindered in neighboring
democracies, which are committed to freedom of
expression. Thus when Latvian authorities imposed a
six-month ban on the Russian television channel Rossiya
RTR for inciting ethnic hatred in April 2016, Russian
officials called on international watchdog bodies to investigate
the incident as a violation of media freedom. 10
Something similar is at work in the nongovernmental
organization (NGO) sector. Moscow has established or
supported a series of charities, think tanks, and associations
that promote Russian interests, claim to represent
Russian minorities, and in some cases advance
secessionist causes in the near abroad. 11 The Russian
government presumes that these organizations will be
allowed to operate without restriction in democracies.
Meanwhile, it compelled the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) to close down its Russia
operations in 2012, and has banned contact between
Russian NGOs and foreign organizations that have
been placed on its “undesirable” list.
Russia has also used the extensive distribution of
passports to draw populations involved in frozen
conflicts—or potentially involved in future conflicts—
into its orbit, and to justify its meddling in neighboring
states. Rather than conquering a foreign people, the
Russian authorities convert foreign individuals into
Russian citizens, then claim a right to defend them
from what had been their own government. Up to 90
percent of those living in Georgia’s breakaway region
of South Ossetia have Russian passports, which are
accessible to anyone who still has Soviet documents
or at least one ancestor who was a permanent resident
of Russia, among other forms of eligibility.
Limited sovereignty, limited options
For Russia’s neighbors, the constant intimidation and
interference from Moscow have significant consequences.
Most importantly, normal political development
becomes difficult, and sometimes impossible.
The affected countries lack full sovereignty in the sense
that they are not free to make fundamental decisions
about their political systems, their trading partners,
and whether to integrate into Euro-Atlantic institutions.
Their national identity and existence as states are regularly
cast into doubt. Democratic reform often takes
a back seat to security concerns, or to policy concessions
aimed at maintaining good relations with Russia.
Prior to the saber rattling from the Kremlin, Estonia
had an economy with one of Europe’s higher rates of
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
growth and was among the vanguard in embracing
e-government and other innovations associated with
a modern open society. Since the invasion of Ukraine
and the Russian military’s menacing gestures along
its border, Estonia has ramped up defense spending
and launched war games to increase preparedness.
Indeed, all three Baltic countries announced major
increases in military spending in 2016.
Conditions are even worse for states where Russia
has instigated frozen conflicts. Russia maintains
military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both
on the territory of Georgia, and in Transnistria. These
enclaves, as well as the occupied portions of Ukraine,
are impoverished, heavily militarized, and marked by
gangsterism and corruption.
Crimea is an instructive case for neighboring peoples
who live under the threat of Russian military intervention.
Residents of the peninsula enjoyed a reasonable
array of civil liberties under the Ukrainian government.
Under Russian occupation, all that has changed.
Moscow has sent Russian officials to run the region as
de facto viceroys. Freedom of the press, which was relatively
vigorous before 2014, has been extinguished,
and independent voices have been arrested or forced
into exile. Property rights are routinely ignored, and
expropriation is used as a blunt instrument against
those who oppose the new order.
The fate of the Crimean Tatars is especially tragic,
given the group’s history of persecution and mass
removal during Soviet times. Their leaders have been
silenced or driven out of the region, their commemorations
banned, and their media muzzled. By supporting
a still-deadly frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, the
Russian leadership has ensured that the attention of
policymakers in the democracies will be focused on
the fighting there, and not on the dreadful conditions
in Crimea. 12
Since its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has done its
best to maximize the intimidating effect on other
neighbors. It conducted war games in which 33,000
troops rehearsed the invasion of Sweden, Norway,
Finland, and Denmark. 13 The Russian navy has held
multiple, large-scale exercises in the Black Sea to defy
NATO, assert its control over Crimea, and threaten
Georgia. 14 Russian and Abkhaz separatist officials
have announced what amounts to a merger of troops
from the two sides under the command of a Russian
officer. 15 Russia’s military is developing the capacity
to simultaneously carry out several operations on the
scale of the Ukraine conflict—limited, rapid offensives
involving elite troops, deception, and propaganda that
would leave opponents fumbling for an appropriate response.
16 The intervention in Syria has already demonstrated
Russia’s ability to project force unexpectedly in
a new theater while maintaining its existing engagements
in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Russia’s renewed embrace of cross-border aggression
has had wide repercussions in Central Europe,
a region that had expected a secure alignment with
the democratic world after the end of the Cold War.
Poland, for example, had achieved something quite
remarkable prior to 2014, given its history of domination
by outside powers. It enjoyed friendly relations
with Germany, one of its past occupiers, and stable
ties with Russia, traditionally the other main threat
to its sovereignty. After the annexation of Crimea,
Poland’s leaders were forced to seriously contemplate
the possibility of a Russian invasion, especially given
Putin’s bellicose language about the speed with which
his tanks could reach nearby capitals. 17 As a result, Poland
has embarked on a military buildup to maintain
its hard-won independence and territorial integrity. 18
But no single European country could ever match
Russia’s present military might. If Poland, the Baltic
states, and their allies fail to maintain solidarity based
on shared democratic standards, it will not be long
before their sovereignty erodes under pressure from
the Kremlin.
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Freedom House
1. Vladimir Frolov, “Rise and Fall of Surkov’s Sovereign Democracy,” Moscow Times, May 13, 2013, https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/rise-and-fall-of-surkovs-sovereign-democracy-23891.
2. Marlene Laruelle, The ‘Russian World’: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination (Washington: Center on Global Interests,
May 2015), http://globalinterests.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FINAL-CGI_Russian-World_Marlene-Laruelle.pdf.
3. Denis Cenusa, Michael Emerson, Tamara Kovziridze, and Veronika Movchan, “Russia’s Punitive Trade Policy Measures towards
Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia,” CEPS Working Document no. 400, September 2014, https://www.ceps.eu/publications/russia%E2%80%99s-punitive-trade-policy-measures-towards-ukraine-moldova-and-georgia.
4. Laruelle, The ‘Russian World.’
5. 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/.
6. Freedom in the World 2016 (New York: Freedom House, 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016.
7. Jill Dougherty and Riina Kaljurand, Estonia’s ‘Virtual Russian World’: The Influence of Russian Media on Estonia’s Russian Speakers
(Tallinn: International Centre for Defence and Security [RKK ICDS], October 2015), http://www.icds.ee/publications/article/estonias-virtual-russian-world-the-influence-of-russian-media-on-estonias-russian-speakers-1/.
8. Ibid.
9. Juhan Kivirähk, Integrating Estonia’s Russian-Speaking Population: Findings of National Defense Opinion Surveys (Tallinn: RKK ICDS,
December 2014), https://www.icds.ee/fileadmin/media/icds.ee/failid/Juhan_Kivirahk_-_Integrating_Estonias_Russian-Speaking_
Population.pdf.
10. TASS, “Foreign Ministry Says Latvian Ban of Russian TV Channel Violates Freedom of Speech,” Meduza, April 8, 2016, https://meduza.io/en/news/2016/04/08/foreign-ministry-says-latvian-ban-of-russian-tv-channel-violates-freedom-of-speech.
11. Laruelle, The ‘Russian World.’
12. Andrii Klymenko, Human Rights Abuses in Russian-Occupied Crimea (Washington: Atlantic Council and Freedom House, 2015),
https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/human-rights-abuses-russian-occupied-crimea#.WA-iD_krK70.
13. David Blair, “Russian Forces ‘Practiced Invasion of Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden,’” Telegraph, June 26, 2015, http://
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11702328/Russian-forces-practised-invasion-of-Norway-Finland-Denmark-and-Sweden.html.
14. See for example “Russia Launches Large-Scale Naval Drill in Black Sea Same Day as NATO,” RT, July 4, 2014,
https://www.rt.com/news/170540-black-sea-russia-drill/.
15. Luke Harding, “Georgia Angered by Russia-Abkhazia Military Agreement,” Guardian, November 24, 2014,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/25/georgia-russia-abkhazia-military-agreement-putin.
16. Adrian Croft, “Russia Could Soon Run Multiple Ukraine-Sized Operations: U.S. General,” Reuters, January 16, 2015, http://www.
reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-idUSKBN0KP1F620150116.
17. Ian Traynor, “Putin Claims Russian Forces ‘Could Conquer Ukraine Capital in Two Weeks,’” Guardian, September 2, 2014, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/02/putin-russian-forces-could-conquer-ukraine-capital-kiev-fortnight.
18. Jeffrey Simpson, “Why Russia’s Neighbors Are Getting Nervous,” Globe and Mail, September 5, 2014, http://www.theglobeandmail.
com/opinion/why-russias-neighbours-are-getting-nervous/article20346364/.
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
Chapter 8
Back to the Future
Until recently, a distinguishing feature of modern
authoritarianism was the ruling group’s ability to consolidate
political power without resorting to the brutal
tactics that defined the mainstream dictatorships of
the 20th century.
The political leadership maintained control of the
commanding heights of the media while tolerating
a small group of critical outlets as a safety valve for
dissent and in order to tout the existence of diverse
opinions in the news. Reformist nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) were allowed to operate, but
not to grow or gain traction. The regime used violence
against its critics, but only sparingly, targeting a few
dissidents or independent journalists as a deterrent to
others. And they were careful to keep the number of
political prisoners to a minimum.
Perhaps most importantly, modern authoritarian
regimes generally refrained from overt acts of hostility
toward their neighbors. Some, such as China, boasted
of a policy that sought harmonious, mutually beneficial
relations with other regional states. Turkey
similarly claimed a policy of “zero problems” with its
neighbors in the period before the Syrian civil war.
Freedom House’s Tyler Roylance has described a
“common set of concessions” that 21st-century authoritarians
made to the prevailing democratic ethos
in the wake of the Cold War, when these regimes were
balancing domestic political control with the need
for deeper integration into the global diplomatic and
economic systems:
• Economic openness: Rather than attempting
to preserve a closed, command, or autarkic
economy, the typical “modern authoritarian”
regime cultivated extensive connections with
the outside world, creating a sense of freedom
and prosperity. However, state enterprises and
crony tycoons retained a dominant position, and
pliant legal systems allowed the leadership and
other corrupt officials to set and routinely reset
the terms of economic participation for foreign
companies, investors, and local entrepreneurs.
• Pluralistic media: Formal prepublication censorship
and media monopolies were abandoned in
most cases, clearing the way for a proliferation
of commercialized, well-produced, and often
entertaining media outlets. But the state and its
agents retained direct or indirect control of key
sectors, manipulated mainstream news coverage,
and kept truly independent journalism on
the margins of the information landscape.
• Political competition: Most regimes allowed
multiparty systems to emerge, and held regular
elections, but opposition parties were fabricated,
coopted, or defanged in practice, allowing
the ruling group to retain a de facto monopoly
on power.
• Civil society: Nongovernmental organizations
were permitted to operate, but they were kept
under close watch and forced to compete with
state-sponsored groups. Organizations focusing
on apolitical topics like public health or education
often received less scrutiny than critical
human rights activists, who were variously
belittled, harassed, or suppressed.
• Rule of law: Twentieth-century authoritarian staples
like martial law, curfews, mass arrests, and
summary executions were largely left behind,
and force began to be used more selectively,
so that most of the population rarely experienced
state brutality. Dissidents were punished
through the legal system, with its vaguely worded
laws and obedient judges, and in cases where
extralegal violence was used, state authorship
was either hidden or not acknowledged. Only
certain ethnic minorities faced naked military
force or deadly police tactics. 1
While more calibrated and less expansive
methods of repression are the defining feature
of modern authoritarianism, the past few years
have seen a reemergence of older methods that
undermine the illusions of pluralism, openness,
and integration into the global economy.
The most extreme departure from the modern
authoritarian policy of balancing national ambitions
with participation in global governance
was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation
of Crimea. No breach of international standards
of that magnitude had been committed since
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Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait in 1990. China’s claim of
ownership of the South China Sea, along with its
creeping militarization of previously uninhabited
islets, is at least as ambitious as Russia’s move,
though the impact is perhaps less jolting given
the dearth of occupied populations.
There have been other reversions to 20th-century
methods of repression. For example:
• Political prisoners: During the 20th century,
opposition figures, political dissidents, advocates
for minority groups, and people who wrote critical
commentaries were regularly sentenced to prison
terms, often under grim conditions, by dictatorships
of all stripes. Amnesty International’s
founding mission was the defense of what were
called “prisoners of conscience,” and they ranged
from dissidents and Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet
Union to those who resisted right-wing juntas
in Latin America. Soviet dissidents like Natan
Sharansky and Vladimir Bukovsky were the focus
of international campaigns organized by human
rights organizations and cautiously embraced by
the United States and other governments.
The ranks of political prisoners declined substantially
after the end of the Cold War and the
collapse of dictatorships in Latin America, Asia,
and to a certain extent Africa. Indeed, it was a
major objective of the new authoritarianism to
maintain political control without shedding blood
or putting people behind bars, actions that provoked
condemnation by human rights advocates,
democratic governments, and UN entities.
Recently, however, the political prisoner has
made a comeback. One notably egregious
offender is Azerbaijan. Under President Ilham
Aliyev, this country of just 9.4 million people has
amassed one of the world’s largest numbers of
political prisoners per capita, with approximately
80 prisoners of conscience during 2015, according
to verified figures. Azerbaijan’s repression
has grown despite the fact that Aliyev already
enjoyed near-total control of key institutions and
distinctly gentle treatment from U.S. and European
political leaders due to Azerbaijan’s role as
an alternative to Russian energy exports.
Venezuela also has a substantial number of
political prisoners—around 100 as of June 2016,
according to credible sources, including prominent
members of the political opposition. 2 Under
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, some estimates
suggest that Egypt holds as many as 60,000 political
prisoners. 3 Turkish authorities have similarly
rounded up tens of thousands of people in the
wake of the July 2016 coup attempt. A much
smaller country, Bahrain, has convicted hundreds
of people of political crimes since 2011, when the
monarchy began arresting members of the political
opposition who were demanding democratic
elections and other freedoms. 4
China is in a class by itself. Since the 1989
crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Tiananmen
Square, the Communist Party leadership
has regularly jailed political dissidents, especially
those who argued publicly for democratic
political changes or made gestures toward the
formation of opposition political parties. The
most notable political prisoner is Liu Xiaobo, the
Nobel Peace Prize winner who was sentenced to
11 years in prison in 2009. However, conditions
have grown far worse under President Xi Jinping,
as a numbing procession of lawyers, journalists,
bloggers, women’s advocates, minority rights
campaigners, and religious believers have been
detained, placed under house arrest, disappeared,
or sentenced to prison. 5
• Public confessions: Humiliating public confessions
of ideological crimes were a staple of
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s purges and Mao
Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China. They
were also employed by Eastern European satellite
regimes during the show trials of the late
1940s. A peculiarly communist technique, the
public confession was largely abandoned after
the deaths of Stalin and Mao.
Under Xi, China has revived the practice. A growing
list of editors, human rights lawyers, and advocates
of political reform have been coerced into
making televised confessions of their “crimes.”
The Chinese authorities even intimidated a Swedish
citizen, legal reform activist Peter Dahlin, into
confessing that he broke Chinese law and “hurt
the feelings of the Chinese people.” Dahlin was
accused of endangering state security by funding
human rights lawyers and compiling reports on
the state of human rights in China. 6
Intensified media domination: Most modern authoritarian
countries allowed a sufficient degree
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
of criticism in the media to justify a tenuous claim
of pluralism. In recent years, tolerance for ideas
and opinions that are not aligned with those of
the regime has steadily eroded. In Russia, a bad
situation became much worse after the invasion
of Ukraine in 2014. Those who criticized or even
raised questions about the morality or wisdom of
the Kremlin’s actions were persecuted, dismissed
from employment, and banned from media commentary.
Putin also expanded the zone of media
control from the mainstream television and print
sectors to the internet.
In Venezuela, one opposition or independent
voice after another has been neutralized, as key
newspapers and television stations were sold,
under duress, to businessmen with ties to the
government. The new and often opaque owners
generally watered down political reporting and
forced out prominent journalists. 7
Even before the 2016 coup attempt, media freedom
in Turkey was deteriorating at an alarming
rate. The government, controlled by President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development
Party, aggressively used the penal code,
criminal defamation legislation, and antiterrorism
laws to punish critical reporting. Journalists
also faced growing violence, harassment,
and intimidation from both state and nonstate
actors. The authorities also used financial and
administrative leverage over media owners to
influence coverage and muzzle dissent. 8
• War propaganda: For some time, propaganda
from Russia, China, and other authoritarian
countries stressed a hostility toward liberal values
and democracy, framed around a relentless
anti-Americanism. There were, however, certain
redlines that propagandists were unlikely to
cross. They would criticize American foreign
policy and blame it for a country’s problems.
But only rarely would they accuse Washington
of warlike intentions, and they seldom if ever
made military threats themselves. Since the
invasion of Ukraine and the resulting economic
sanctions imposed by the United States and the
EU, Russian propaganda has assumed an uglier,
more menacing tone. The same is true in China,
where official expressions of hostility toward the
United States and “Western” democratic values
intensified—indeed took on a histrionic and
belligerent character—after the ascension of Xi
Jinping as Communist Party leader. In Turkey,
progovernment commentators have accused
the U.S. government and even an American
think tank of involvement in the failed coup of
2016. 9
• Closing doors to the outside world: More
than anything else, modern authoritarianism is
distinguished from traditional autocracy by its
openness to relatively normal relations with the
outside world. China, for example, long sought
to balance calibrated repression at home with
participation in an impressive array of global institutions.
Beijing welcomed the establishment
of local branches of foreign, mostly American,
universities, joint research ventures with foreign
scholars, and even the involvement of foreign
NGOs in areas such as legal reform and environmental
conservation. While more ambivalent
about the international media, Chinese
authorities did give unprecedented freedom of
movement to foreign journalists in the period
surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Russia
was less welcoming to foreign involvement in
the country, whether by governmental or private
entities, but for a time it maintained academic
exchanges with the United States and European
countries, grudgingly tolerated foreign NGOs,
and took some pride in the freedom of Russians
to travel freely abroad.
Conditions have deteriorated over the past
several years. In Russia, the government reduced
trade with Europe in response to sanctions,
imposed travel restrictions on millions of
public-sector employees, smeared domestic
human rights organizations as “foreign agents”
for accepting international funding, and began
blacklisting foreign NGOs as “undesirable.” China
has increased regulatory and legal pressure
on foreign companies, bullied foreign countries
into repatriating Chinese political refugees,
significantly increased regulatory restrictions on
foreign NGOs, and sharply curbed journalistic
freedom for foreign correspondents.
Propaganda and official rhetoric in both
countries has increasingly portrayed them as
besieged fortresses, threatened on all sides by
hostile foreign powers, spies, separatists, and
traitors who seek to topple the government and
deny the nation its rightful place in the world. In
this environment, any interaction with foreigners
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becomes suspect, and national security takes
precedence over the benefits of global integration.
• Foreign aggression: The revival of Russia as a
military power has been a central goal of Putin’s
leadership. He increased troop levels, devoted
billions of dollars to equipment modernization,
and instituted a series of reforms designed to
enable the military to engage in several limited
conflicts simultaneously. To compensate for the
material advantages of the United States and
NATO, the Russian military developed a strategic
approach known as hybrid warfare, which seeks
to combine conventional tactics, espionage and
subversion, cyberattacks, and propaganda so as
to limit the role of traditional battlefield operations
and, where possible, sow confusion as to
who is responsible for the aggression and how
it should be dealt with. The strategy has been
put into action in Ukraine, and intrusive Russian
patrols have also harassed foreign navies and
air forces across Northern Europe. In Georgia,
Russian troops have constantly encroached on
the Tbilisi government by simply moving border
fences encircling the Russian-backed separatist
region of South Ossetia.
China has also engaged in a massive military
buildup, and is pressing its maritime territorial
claims with huge fleets of coast guard vessels
and new island bases that bristle with armaments.
Its tactics at sea are openly aggressive,
but stop just short of the sort of action that
might trigger live fire.
Iran has long cultivated indirect methods of foreign
aggression, particularly through the covert
equipping and training of allied Shiite militias
in Arab states. In recent years, however, it has
openly deployed these militias in large numbers—overseen
on the front lines by high-ranking
Iranian officers—to battle zones in Syria and Iraq,
and it has increasingly drawn on Afghan recruits
in addition to Arabs. Iran’s regional rivals, chiefly
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have
responded with more direct foreign interventions
of their own, most notably in Yemen.
The recent embrace of more overtly repressive policies
stems in part from the common structural flaws of the
modern authoritarian model. The question of succession
in authoritarian governments is a constant source
of tension, producing crises—such as Putin’s return to
the presidency after his circumvention of term limits in
2012—that require new crackdowns on dissent.
Moreover, because these regimes do not allow
peaceful rotations of power through elections, they
rely in large part on the promise of economic growth
as a source of legitimacy. However, they also feature
systemic corruption as a means of maintaining internal
cohesion. All of this leaves them ill-equipped to
cope with economic shocks and related public anger.
The global economic downturn of 2008 and the more
recent drop in energy prices have shaken economies
and political establishments around the world, but
while citizens of democracies can take their frustrations
to the ballot box, authoritarian rulers must
treat protests against austerity or unemployment as
existential threats.
The promise of national greatness and the menace
of external enemies are tried-and-true alternatives
to economic prosperity as sources of regime legitimacy.
Unfortunately, promoting these narratives also
generates new cycles of dissent and repression, and
damages ties with the outside world, further undermining
the economy.
A transition from bad to worse
While the return to the blunt instruments of the past
suggests a fundamental weakness in the modern
authoritarianism model, it would be a mistake to conclude
that these regimes are doomed to extinction.
The emergence of this model was in fact a remarkable
demonstration of adaptability on the part of authoritarian
rulers, who faced a uniquely inhospitable environment
in the years after the end of the Cold War.
Democracy, human rights, and the rule of law were
newly ascendant as the governing principles of the
international order, and undemocratic leaders made
the changes necessary to survive without surrendering
their political dominance.
If they are now reversing some of these changes, it
is not just because the basic structures and incentives
of authoritarian rule tend to encourage greater
repression over time. It is also because the external
pressure to conform to democratic standards is rapidly
disappearing.
Leading democracies have absorbed the economic
blows of recent years without revolution or repression,
but voter frustration has increasingly lifted up
antiestablishment, populist, and nationalist politicians
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
who have little interest in the democratizing mission
traditionally espoused by mainstream parties with deep
roots in the global struggles of the 20th century. The
new mood is reflected in the democracies’ foreign policies,
many of which are aimed more at seeking national
advantage than at promoting the common good.
The rise of populist politics in democracies could give
modern authoritarianism a new lease on life. While it
may no longer be as useful for entrenched autocracies
to mask their nature with an illusion of pluralism, freely
elected leaders with authoritarian ambitions can
use similar techniques to replace genuine democratic
institutions with hollowed-out façades. This process
is already under way in the countries that have been
dubbed “illiberal democracies.”
With states across the spectrum shifting in an
authoritarian direction, there is not much comfort in
the fact that repressive regimes are fundamentally
more unstable and vulnerable to breakdowns than
democracies. Major authoritarian governments may
collapse in the face of economic crises, popular
protests, or succession battles. But in the absence of
international pressure and support, it seems doubtful
that they would be replaced by aspiring democracies.
Indeed, they could be succeeded by something
even worse.
1. Tyler Roylance, “The Twilight of ‘Modern Authoritarianism,’” Freedom at Issue, October 29, 2014, https://freedomhouse.org/blog/
twilight-modern-authoritarianism.
2. Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez, “In Venezuela, Political Prisoners as Pawns,” New York Times, July 1, 2016, http://www.nytimes.
com/2016/07/02/opinion/in-venezuela-political-prisoners-as-pawns.html.
3. Albaraa Abdullah, “Egypt Fills Its Prisons, But Don’t Worry, It’ll Make More,” Al-Monitor, February 3, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.
com/pulse/originals/2016/02/egypt-authorities-prison-free-speech-sisi.html.
4. “Bahrain,” in Annual Report (London: Amnesty International, 2016), https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-northafrica/bahrain/report-bahrain/.
5. “China: List of Political Prisoners Detained or Imprisoned as of October 11, 2016,” U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on
China, http://www.cecc.gov/sites/chinacommission.house.gov/files/documents/CECC%20Pris%20List_20161011_1433.pdf.
6. Tom Phillips, “Swedish Activist Peter Dahlin Paraded on China State TV for ‘Scripted Confession,’” Guardian, January 19, 2016,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/20/swedish-activist-peter-dahlin-paraded-on-china-state-tv-for-scripted-confession.
7. “Venezuela,” in Freedom of the Press 2015 (New York: Freedom House, 2015), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/venezuela.
8. “Turkey,” in Freedom of the Press 2016 (New York: Freedom House, 2016), https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2016/
turkey.
9. John Hudson, “Erdogan Allies Accuse Leading Washington Think Tank of Orchestrating Coup,” Foreign Policy, August 8, 2016,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/08/erdogan-allies-accuse-leading-washington-think-tank-of-orchestrating-coup/.
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Conclusion
Authoritarianism Comes Calling
Until very recently, the spread of the methods and strategies
described in this report has largely been greeted with complacency
and indifference in the democratic world. Even as it became clear
that the rejection of liberal values by Russia, China, and other
authoritarian states was a permanent fixture of global politics,
democracies convinced themselves that although modern
authoritarianism posed a challenge to the spread of freedom beyond
its current reach, their own freedoms were in no jeopardy.
In the aftermath of the stunning events of 2016, it is
apparent that the post–Cold War democratic order is
in fact facing an unprecedented threat. Britain’s vote
to leave the European Union (EU), the election of Donald
Trump as president of the United States, and the
emergence of populist demagogues across Europe
have all raised questions about the future of democracy
in its traditional bastions.
It can no longer be assumed that Russia’s challenge
to democracy is limited to its policies of internal
repression and aggression toward neighbors like
Ukraine and Georgia. The Kremlin’s development of
parallel institutions—government-controlled civil
society, a propaganda machine based on the latest
media technologies, realistic but purely decorative
elections—was once regarded as a project intended
for Russia alone. When Angela Merkel, in response to
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, exclaimed that Vladimir
Putin lives in a different world, she meant a specifically
Russian universe where facts are irrelevant,
international treaties are obsolete, and sovereignty is
a matter of power rather than law.
Now, however, the Kremlin has attempted to project
this version of reality onto the democratic world. In
the United States, Russia brazenly interfered in the
electoral process through hacking efforts sponsored
by its intelligence agencies. Whether this interference
actually affected the outcome of the election is sub-
ject to debate. But there is strong evidence, endorsed
by the entirety of the U.S. intelligence establishment
and numerous independent analyses, that the interference
did occur.
Just as worrying is the suggestion that the United
States, much like Russia itself, has entered a “post-truth
era,” in which lies and distortions carry as much weight
as facts. Clearly, at least some of this hand-wringing
was a partisan reaction to Trump’s victory. But it
followed an election in which the winning candidate
falsely claimed, among other things, that the balloting
was rigged against him, that violent crime had reached
record levels, and that undocumented immigrants were
responsible for a large share of the violence.
Meanwhile, as of early 2017, populist parties with Russian-friendly
platforms and histories of nativism and
other forms of bigotry were expected to gain ground in
upcoming elections in countries like the Netherlands,
France, and Germany.
As it became more obvious that the democracies
were poorly equipped to contend with resurgent
authoritarianism, the leading autocracies were experimenting
with more frightening methods of assuring
domestic political control.
China in particular seemed to take an Orwellian
turn with the planned introduction of a social credit
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
system. This form of digital totalitarianism would allow
the state to gather information on Chinese citizens
from a variety of sources and use it to maintain scores
or rankings based on an individual’s perceived trustworthiness,
including on political matters. Chinese
officials have claimed that by 2020, the system will
“allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under
heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take
a single step.” 1 A citizen could receive bad marks for
petitioning the government, participating in protests,
or circulating banned ideas on social media.
As for Russia, the Kremlin complemented its covert interference
overseas with open and ugly acts of repression
at home. In one brief period in early 2017, Russian
opposition politician Aleksey Navalny was blocked from
competing in the 2018 presidential contest through
a trumped-up criminal conviction, dissident journalist
Vladimir Kara-Murza nearly died from his second suspected
poisoning, and the Russian parliament passed
a law to decriminalize domestic violence that results in
“minor harm” such as small lacerations and bruising. 2
Proponents of the domestic abuse law hailed it as a
win for traditional family values.
The confluence of authoritarian gains and setbacks
for democracy suggest a number of conclusions:
1. Modern authoritarianism is a permanent and
increasingly powerful rival to liberal democracy
as the dominant governing system of the 21st
century. Variations on the systems that have
proved effective in suppressing political dissent
and pluralism in Russia and China are less likely
to collapse than traditional authoritarian states,
given their relative flexibility and pragmatism.
2. The most serious threat to authoritarian systems
lies in economic breakdown. However, Russia,
China, and other major autocracies have shown
themselves capable of surviving economic setbacks
that, while affecting the standard of living,
did not push citizens to the limits of endurance.
The catastrophic case of Venezuela is a notable
exception. Of the main countries examined in
this study, only in Venezuela did the political leadership
attempt to impose a socialist economic
system and wage war on the private sector.
3. Illiberalism in democratic environments is more
than a temporary problem that can be fixed
through an inevitable rotation of power. In Hungary,
the Fidesz government has instituted policies
that make it difficult for opposition parties
to raise funds or present their political message,
creating a structurally uneven political playing
field. Other elected leaders with authoritarian
mindsets will take notice and follow suit.
4. Authoritarian states are likely to intensify efforts
to influence the political choices and government
polices of democracies. The pressure will
vary from country to country, but it will become
increasingly difficult to control due to global
economic integration, new developments in
the delivery of propaganda, and sympathetic
leaders and political movements within the democracies.
Putin and his cohorts have learned
well how to use democratic openness against
democracy itself.
5. Authoritarian leaders can count on an increasingly
vocal group of admirers in democratic
states. For several years now, European parties
of the nationalistic right and anticapitalist left
have forged ties with Moscow and aligned their
goals with Putin’s. The 2016 U.S. presidential
election revealed a new constituency, albeit
small, that harbors respect for Putin despite
his hostility to American interests and his interference
in the country’s democratic process.
A disturbing number of advisers to the Trump
campaign, including Trump himself, expressed
admiration for Putin and his system. In addition,
various political figures and commentators have
praised or come to the defense of despotic
rulers including Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Bashar
al-Assad.
6. Modern authoritarians can be expected to double
down on their drive to neuter civil society
as an incubator of reformist ideas and political
initiatives. Civil society can serve as a vibrant
alternative to mainstream democratic parties
as those parties fall prey to corruption, elitism,
and ossification. After the Kremlin effectively
defanged the collection of human rights organizations,
conservation projects, election monitors,
and anticorruption committees in Russia, other
autocrats and illiberal leaders began to act in
similar fashion. Both Viktor Orbán in Hungary and
the leaders of the Law and Justice party in Poland
have spoken of “bringing order” to the nongovernmental
sector, though serious restrictions on
freedom of association have yet to be adopted by
an EU state. That could change in 2017.
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7. The rewriting of history will become more widespread
and will greatly complicate societal efforts
to confront both past and present political
abuses. The rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin and
the airbrushing of Mao Zedong’s destructive
reign serve to facilitate an authoritarian form of
nationalism in which strength and unity supersede
justice and freedom, and the state is exalted
at the expense of individual human beings.
8. Authoritarian or illiberal forces are more likely to
gain supremacy in countries where the parties
that represent liberal democracy do not simply
lose elections, but experience a full-blown political
collapse, whether through corruption, ineptitude,
or failure to build lasting bonds with the public. In
the end, elections do matter, and real change still
requires victory at the polls. This is why robust,
self-confident, and uncorrupted opposition parties
are essential to democracy’s survival.
Recommendations
In studies of this kind, recommendations are primarily
addressed to policymakers, particularly in the administration
and Congress of the United States. Given
the election of Donald Trump, however, a different
approach is called for.
Trump has made clear again and again his admiration
for Vladimir Putin, to the point of asserting a kind of
moral equivalency between the Russian and American
governments. Since he assumed office, Trump and
certain aides have encouraged in America the kind of
“post-truth” environment that has prevailed in Russia
under Putin. The new president has shown no interest
in an American role in promoting human rights and
democracy around the world; indeed, he seemed to
dismiss this core element of U.S. foreign policy in
his initial address to Congress, instead emphasizing
“harmony and stability” and “the sovereign rights of all
nations.” Under these circumstances, to rely first and
foremost on the U.S. government to meet the challenge
posed by Russia, China, and other authoritarian
states would amount to an exercise in futility.
The role of governments, both in the United States
and Europe, will remain crucial. But the threat posed
by modern authoritarianism has spread well beyond
its original proving grounds. To some extent, the problems
discussed in this report have already infected
the United States and a number of European countries.
They represent a menace to the media, academic
freedom, civil society, electoral systems, and the
rule of law. They even put in jeopardy the integrity of
the facts and figures that an accountable government
and a successful economy require. When the values
of the political leadership are seen to waver, independent,
nongovernmental voices and institutions will
be called upon to do their part—not just to defend
democracy at home, but to convince skeptical politicians
and citizens that supporting the same struggle
abroad serves the public interest.
To the U.S. government: We urge the Trump administration
to appoint a director of global communications
who is experienced in journalism and allow that person
to build a program to counter hostile authoritarian
messaging through up-to-date delivery techniques,
honest reporting, and forthright commentary. Near
the end of 2016, Congress passed legislation that
placed the country’s government-supported international
media outlets—Voice of America (VOA), Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and their sister
services focused on Asia and other regions—under
more direct presidential control, on the theory that a
commander-in-chief who was committed to countering
aggressive Russian influence would be better able
to develop and implement new strategies. President
Trump has yet to indicate how he intends to use this
authority.
In the contest against Soviet communism, America’s
international broadcasting entities were the crown
jewels of U.S. soft power. Indeed, in some countries,
such as Poland or Romania, Radio Free Europe
functioned as the opposition press, and clearly had
a greater audience and more influence than the
censored government press. In the post–Cold War
period, what were initially shortwave radio services
have evolved into modern media outlets, with video
content, podcasts, blogs, social media engagement,
and other forms of information delivery. Nevertheless,
the United States today needs to update the strategy
and operations of its publicly supported broadcasters
and—most importantly—provide them with the
resources to compete with a Russian propaganda
machine that is nimble, attuned to popular discontent,
and generously funded.
To the independent media: The mainstream press
in the United States has recently shown increased
interest in reporting on Russian methods of information
warfare, some of which have been embraced
by far-right media outlets that seek to undermine
popular support for the core institutions of American
democracy. We urge more responsible media to
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BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
continue their investigation of these techniques and
experiment with ways to combat them.
We also urge more intense coverage of Beijing’s efforts
to undermine democratic norms in neighboring states
or territories, as in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and its
largely successful attempts to pressure other governments
into repatriating citizens who had fled persecution
in China.
Lastly, the media are not doing their job if they neglect
to give aggressive coverage to the lobbyists and public-relations
specialists who make money by representing
dictators and kleptocrats. Those who flack for
the leaders of China, Azerbaijan, Egypt, and their ilk
should be made to answer for each political prisoner,
murdered opposition figure, shuttered newspaper, and
offshore account full of stolen funds that can be tied
to their authoritarian clients.
To the academic community: We urge academic
associations, individual scholars, and university
administrations to stand up for freedom of thought
and open inquiry at a time when those values are
under relentless pressure from dictatorships. We
urge statements of protest against the persecution of
fellow scholars or the politicized rewriting of history,
especially in countries, like Russia and China, that are
integrated into the international university system.
We urge universities to reject the establishment of
projects and study departments—whether at home or
overseas—that do not adhere to the highest standards
of intellectual freedom or that restrict discussion
of certain subjects.
To the business community: We urge private businesses
to avoid commercial relationships with
authoritarian governments that force them to violate
fundamental democratic principles. Private companies
and investors have a clear interest in democratic
public goods like the rule of law, which guarantees
their property rights, and the transparency provided
by free media and corruption watchdogs, which
ensures the accuracy of economic data and the fair
allocation of state contracts. They should therefore do
what they can to prevent any further deterioration in
the condition of global democracy.
Some sectors are especially vulnerable to authoritarian
pressure, and have a special role to play in combating it.
We urge the film industry to reject involvement in joint
ventures with companies that have close ties to authoritarian
regimes and reputations for demanding politicized
censorship of artistic content. We also urge the
technology industry to refuse business arrangements
that require active complicity in or passive acceptance
of political censorship or information control.
To the European Union: We urge the EU to undertake
a comprehensive review of member states’ democratic
institutions to determine whether recent changes
have weakened checks and balances or unduly
protected incumbent parties from fair electoral competition.
The EU should adopt measures to publicize
departures from democratic standards and develop
a new set of sanctions that could be imposed on
noncompliant governments—whether inside, outside,
or hoping to join the bloc—even in the absence of
unanimity among member states. In the meantime,
the EU should use the sanctions already in place, even
if it means freezing a member state’s participation,
and be prepared to actually impose any new sanctions
that might be introduced.
To private foundations: We urge private foundations
to recognize and oppose the current assault on
democracy. With a few exceptions, the great institutions
of American philanthropy have studiously—and
shamefully—ignored the steady erosion of global freedom
and the rise of authoritarian powers. The recent
developments in Europe and the United States will
hopefully shake their complacency. There is a strong
need for analysis, support for individual dissidents,
and aid for societies under authoritarian threat, and as
many democratic governments waver in their commitment
to such priorities, it is essential for private
funders to step into the breach.
To mainstream political candidates: We urge responsible
political figures to call out colleagues or
rivals when they show contempt for basic democratic
ideas. Until now, politicians in the democracies have
been unimpressive in their responses to opponents
who embrace authoritarian figures like Putin. This
is despite the overwhelming evidence of egregious
crimes under Putin’s rule: murdered journalists and
political opposition leaders, the invasion of neighboring
states, brutish counterinsurgency campaigns in
the North Caucasus, the emasculation of a once-vibrant
media sector, rigged elections, and much more.
If they choose to shower him with praise, political
leaders like Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, and Donald
Trump should be forced to account for the realities of
Putin’s appalling record. The same is true for any politician
who praises dictators in the Middle East, Asia, or
Africa.
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Freedom House
To human rights organizations: Human rights groups
operating from the safety of democracies should be
more aggressive in publicizing the plight of political
prisoners. The defense of jailed dissidents was a major
factor behind the rise of the modern human rights
movement. Political prisoners became a lower priority
as their numbers declined after the Cold War, but
today there are more than a thousand in China alone,
and many others in Venezuela, Iran, Azerbaijan, and
elsewhere. It is past time for the phrase “prisoner of
conscience” to again become an important part of our
regular political vocabulary.
Furthermore, human rights organizations need
to develop strategies that address the varied and
sophisticated methods of repression used by modern
authoritarians. There should be better efforts to
identify individual perpetrators of abuse, document
their culpability, and expose their actions. Among other
benefits, such work would feed into governmental
mechanisms for imposing sanctions, like the United
States’ Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability
Act, which allows visa bans and asset freezes
for foreign officials who are personally involved in
egregious human rights violations.
To the free world: All democratic governments should
make support for civil society in authoritarian and
illiberal environments a bigger priority. This is especially
urgent given that laws and regulations designed
to neutralize nongovernmental organizations, which
were first adopted by Russia, are now being taken up
in countries like Hungary and Poland.
Democracies will also have to push back against
Chinese censorship. The sheer size of China’s economy
gives Beijing the clout to insist on unreasonable,
nonreciprocal, and often antidemocratic concessions
from trading partners, the most prominent of which
is the state’s right to determine what its people can
read, watch, or circulate via social media. The Chinese
leadership expects the rest of the world to accept its
brand of censorship as the normal state of affairs in
China, and it is increasingly extending its demands
beyond its borders, affecting the information available
to global audiences.
Chinese censorship practices should be challenged at
international forums and in bilateral meetings. Democratic
governments should speak out when their own
academics, artists, media companies, and corporations
are subjected to censorship or blocking by the
Chinese authorities. As long as Beijing maintains its
current policies, democracies should take measures
to prevent their own media, entertainment, and other
information-related corporations from falling under
the control of Chinese companies that support or
benefit from censorship.
Finally, the free world must keep faith with states
whose democratic goals are under threat from large
and aggressive authoritarian powers. A prime example
is Ukraine. That country represents the absolute
front line in the global struggle for freedom. Building
democracy in an inhospitable neighborhood is always
difficult, particularly when your most powerful neighbor
is determined to steal your land and wreck your
home. Kyiv has made impressive strides; indeed, it has
gone much further along the democratic path than it
did after the Orange Revolution in 2005. But it still has
hard work ahead, and it remains in serious danger. A
positive outcome in Ukraine would not by itself erase
the broader gains secured by the world’s autocrats
over the past decade, but it would be a pivotal defeat
for their campaign to sow chaos and disunity among
those who still live or aspire to live in freedom.
1. “Big Data, Meet Big Brother: China Invents the Digital Totalitarian State,” Economist, December 17, 2016, http://www.economist.
com/news/briefing/21711902-worrying-implications-its-social-credit-project-china-invents-digital-totalitarian.
2. Feliz Solomon, “Vladimir Putin Just Signed Off on the Partial Decriminalization of Domestic Abuse in Russia,” Time, February 8,
2017, http://time.com/4663532/russia-putin-decriminalize-domestic-abuse/.
www.freedomhouse.org
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for democracy and human rights.
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