Spin Dictators

1. The Rise of Spin Dictators: Deception Over Terror

Instead of terrorizing citizens, a skillful ruler can control them by reshaping their beliefs about the world.

A new tyranny. The 21st century has witnessed a profound shift in authoritarian rule, moving away from the overt brutality of 20th-century "fear dictators" like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. These old-school tyrants relied on widespread violence, comprehensive censorship, and imposed ideologies to maintain control, openly rejecting democratic principles. Their power was built on fear.

The spin model. Today's "spin dictators," exemplified by leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Lee Hsien Loong, employ a more sophisticated and deceptive approach. Their primary goal remains the monopolization of political power, but they achieve it by manipulating information and public perception rather than through overt terror. They act the part of democrats, concealing their true nature.

Rules of spin. Spin dictators operate by a distinct set of rules designed to maintain control while projecting an image of legitimacy. These include:

• Cultivating genuine popularity among the masses.
• Using this popularity to consolidate institutional power.
• Pretending to be democratic, often holding elections.
• Engaging with the international community.
• Avoiding or carefully concealing violent repression.
  This strategy allows them to survive and even prosper in a modern, globalized world.

2. Calibrated Coercion: Discipline, Don't Punish

What struck Lee about Lim’s response was not its violence but its ineptness. It taught him, he wrote, how “not to be tough and flat-footed.”

Lee Kuan Yew's innovation. Singapore's long-serving leader, Lee Kuan Yew, pioneered a model of "calibrated coercion" that minimized visible repression. Unlike his contemporaries who publicly executed opponents or imprisoned thousands, Lee focused on subtle methods to neutralize dissent. His approach aimed to maintain public support while effectively stifling opposition without appearing heavy-handed.

Old vs. new violence. The 20th century was characterized by dictators who openly publicized their violence, using mass killings, torture, and imprisonment as gruesome theater to deter opposition and reshape society. Examples include:

• Stalin's purges and the Gulag.
• Mao's Cultural Revolution.
• Pinochet's military crackdowns.
• Mobutu's public executions.
  This overt brutality was meant to instill fear and enforce ideological conformity.

The new playbook. Spin dictators have developed a repertoire of low-visibility coercive techniques to avoid international condemnation and maintain a popular image. These include:

• Arresting dissidents for fabricated non-political crimes (e.g., tax evasion, fraud).
• Using repeated, short-term detentions ("revolving door" arrests).
• Bankrupting opposition figures through lawsuits and fines.
• Imposing restrictive regulations on opposition activities.
• Accusing opponents of violence or terrorism.
• Privatizing "dirty jobs" by using loosely affiliated agents or online trolls to harass critics.
  This shift is evident in a dramatic decline in state political killings and political prisoners since the 1980s.

3. Postmodern Propaganda: Competence, Celebrity, and Covert Influence

Where twentieth-century strongmen relished violent imagery—recall Saddam’s “poisoned dagger”—spin dictators adopt a cooler rhetoric of competence and expertise, sometimes with a light socialist or nationalist veneer.

Rhetoric of performance. Spin dictators replace the fear-inducing rhetoric of old-school autocrats with a cooler, more professional image. Leaders like Kazakhstan's Nazarbayev or Peru's Fujimori project themselves as competent managers, focused on economic prosperity and public service. They boast of achievements, introduce new programs, and publicly scold subordinates to demonstrate their dedication to the people's welfare.

Kaleidoscope of appeals. Unlike fear dictators who imposed rigid ideologies and personality cults, spin dictators avoid official doctrines. Instead, they use a flexible mix of images and themes—nationalism, populism, traditionalism—tailored to different audiences. They cultivate celebrity rather than a personality cult, allowing for irony and even parody, as seen with Putin's carefully curated macho image or Chávez's theatrical broadcasts. This decentralized approach makes their messaging more adaptable and less brittle.

Borrowing credibility. A key tactic is to allow some nominally independent media, which can then be used to lend credibility to the regime's narratives. When state media is distrusted, reports from "critical" outlets can be more convincing. Spin dictators also conceal the source of their propaganda, using trolls and bots to infiltrate online conversations and spread messages that appear to originate from ordinary citizens. This subtle manipulation aims to shape public opinion without revealing the government's hand.

4. Sensible Censorship: Partial, Covert, and Non-Violent Media Control

For the administration, it was important that the [poll] numbers be taken seriously, both at home and abroad. The pro-coup polls gained credibility because they were published by a free press.

Fujimori's lesson. Peru's Alberto Fujimori learned that overt censorship, like his initial post-coup crackdown, could backfire by provoking international condemnation and undermining the regime's legitimacy. Instead, he realized that a token opposition press could be strategically useful, lending credibility to government-backed narratives and demonstrating a superficial commitment to press freedom.

Covert manipulation. Spin dictators avoid the comprehensive, public, and violent censorship of their predecessors. They do not burn books or ban all private media. Instead, they employ subtle, covert methods to control information flow, making it harder for citizens and international observers to detect manipulation. This approach minimizes backlash while still ensuring favorable coverage.

Tactics of control. These methods include:

• Bribing media owners and directing news coverage through secret contracts.
• Channeling state advertising to loyal outlets.
• Harassing critical journalists with defamation lawsuits and crippling fines.
• Using regulatory pressures, such as tax investigations or arbitrary license revocations.
• Restricting circulation of critical publications without outright bans.
• Camouflaging interventions as "technical problems" or market forces.
• Discrediting opposition sources through smears and insults.
• Flooding media with pro-government content to drown out dissenting voices.
  This "sensible censorship" is less violent and more effective in maintaining a facade of democracy.

5. Democracy for Dictators: Elections as Tools of Power

He had found his most powerful weapon. Over the next fourteen years, he would, in the words of Enrique Krauze, a leading historian of modern Latin America, use “democracy to undermine democracy.”

Elections as weapons. For spin dictators, elections are not about choosing leaders but about consolidating power and legitimizing their rule. Unlike old-school autocrats who scorned pluralist democracy and held sham elections with 99% wins, spin dictators embrace the rhetoric of democracy and strive for less implausible landslides (typically 60-75% of the vote). These victories are then used to claim a popular mandate for constitutional changes and power grabs.

Manipulating the ballot. To ensure favorable outcomes while maintaining a democratic facade, spin dictators employ a range of sophisticated tactics:

• Excluding popular opposition candidates on technicalities.
• Gerrymandering electoral districts to magnify their party's seat share.
• Padding the electorate with loyal diaspora voters.
• Co-opting or cloning opposition parties to create a "systemic opposition."
• Using propaganda and censorship to shape public opinion during campaigns.
• Employing electoral fraud, often blatantly, to demoralize genuine challengers and reinforce the perception of invincibility.

The paradox of fraud. Even when fraud is evident, it can paradoxically increase the incumbent's legitimacy. If citizens expect a certain level of vote inflation, a result that meets this expectation can be seen as "true," reinforcing confidence in the outcome. Furthermore, spin dictators exploit the belief that fraud is common even in established democracies, using Western political scandals to normalize their own abuses. This strategy allows them to harvest their popularity into institutional advantages without risking genuine competition.

6. Global Pillage: Exploiting the Interconnected World

They recruit networks of corrupt partners in the West, simultaneously pursuing concrete goals and eroding Western cohesion.

Openness as a weapon. Spin dictators are far more comfortable with porous borders and global integration than their isolationist predecessors. They welcome international travel, foreign study, and trade, not just for economic benefits but also to project an image of modernity and openness. This engagement allows them to exploit the interconnected world for their own strategic advantage, rather than fearing it as a source of contamination.

International manipulation. Spin dictators adapt their domestic tactics of deception and co-optation to the international arena. They:

• Collect foreign endorsements from leaders, experts, and celebrities to bolster their image at home.
• Host international summits and sporting events to demonstrate global prestige.
• Create "zombie" election-monitoring groups to legitimize flawed elections.
• Exploit international police organizations like Interpol to harass opponents abroad with fabricated charges.
• Launch global TV channels (e.g., RT, Telesur) to spread alternative narratives and sow cynicism about Western democracies.
• Hire Western PR firms and lobbyists to burnish their image and influence policy.

Co-opting Western elites. A crucial strategy is to cultivate and corrupt influential figures in Western capitals. This involves:

• Offering lucrative positions to former Western leaders (e.g., Gerhard Schröder on Russian energy boards).
• Funding Western political parties, sometimes covertly, to gain political allies.
• Hiring Western consultants for "black operations" and image management.
  This "global pillage" allows spin dictators to weaken Western alliances, erode trust in democratic institutions, and normalize their own corrupt practices by exposing similar flaws in the West.

7. The Modernization Cocktail: Why Dictatorships Are Changing

The paradox is that while development threatens dictators, economic growth helps them survive.

The driving forces. The shift from fear to spin dictatorship is primarily driven by a "modernization cocktail" of interconnected forces. This cocktail operates both within countries and at the international level, making old-style violent repression increasingly costly and ineffective.

Internal pressures:

• Postindustrial society: The rise of creative, information-rich work demands innovation, which is stifled by coercion.
• Higher education: The spread of college education fosters critical thinking and organizational skills, making populations harder to control.
• Self-expression values: As affluence grows, citizens prioritize individual expression and participation over mere survival.
• New communication technology: The Internet's "many-to-many" nature makes comprehensive censorship difficult and empowers networks of informed citizens.

External pressures:

• Economic globalization: Integration into global trade and finance makes countries vulnerable to sanctions and dependent on international goodwill.
• Informational globalization: Global media and the Internet expose abuses and connect dissidents across borders.
• Liberal international order: The rise of human rights movements, international law, and institutions increases the costs of overt repression through "shaming" and potential interventions.

Adaptation and survival. Faced with these pressures, dictators must adapt. Some, like Malaysia, are eventually pushed towards genuine democracy as their informed stratum grows. Others, like Russia under Putin, attempt to freeze or reverse modernization, a desperate move that often leads to stagnation and renewed political crisis. Oil wealth can temporarily delay these pressures, but the long-term trend favors less violent, more deceptive forms of authoritarianism, or ultimately, democracy.

8. Adversarial Engagement: A New Strategy for Democracies

The West has something they do not: a powerful idea around which it can unite, the idea of liberal democracy.

Diagnosing the threat. Today's spin dictators pose a complex challenge. They lack a coherent ideology but pretend to be democrats, using hypocrisy to sow cynicism about democracy itself. They export corruption and disinformation, weakening Western institutions and discrediting elites. Unlike Cold War adversaries, they infiltrate and exploit Western alliances from within, rather than confronting them directly.

A new approach: adversarial engagement. The West cannot simply contain or ignore these regimes; a smarter, more nuanced integration is needed. This involves:

• Increased vigilance: Investing in financial monitoring, counterintelligence, and cybersecurity to track covert authoritarian influence.
• Welcoming modernization: Supporting economic and social development in authoritarian states, as it ultimately raises the cost of repression.
• Putting our own house in order: Building resilience against foreign interference, strengthening anti-corruption laws, banning anonymous shell companies, and reforming democratic institutions to restore public confidence.
• Defending and reforming liberal institutions: Preventing blackmail within alliances like NATO and the EU, and purging human rights bodies of abusers.
• Supporting democracy democratically: Avoiding military interventions, appealing to global public opinion, forging a united alliance of liberal democracies, and accepting periodic defeats without abandoning the cause.

The power of an idea. Despite the challenges, the West's strongest weapon remains the idea of liberal democracy itself, which enjoys widespread global appeal. By reinforcing its commitment to democratic values at home and promoting them strategically abroad, the West can counter authoritarian propaganda and ultimately prevail in this contest of ideas.

Last updated: January 10, 2026