Propaganda

Propaganda

One additional tool to add to the mix of carrots and sticks is propaganda.

Governments may also expend resources to shore up their legitimacy in the minds of

citizens, for example through sophisticated propaganda bureaucracies or control of

information flows to the people. Here the term propaganda is used to refer to biased

information communicated to convince audiences of a particular political view.

Deploying propaganda is neither a carrot nor stick – or perhaps it is a bit of both – but

rather a powerful means to control people’s perceptions and thoughts. Propaganda,

as an ideational strategy, is in a category of its own, and especially powerful when it

explanations for this, one of the more common is that authoritarian states that came

to power under massive social revolutions are more likely to remain in power. While

revolutions will be explored in later chapters, a social revolution is one that is supported

by mass mobilization and seeks to radically change the social structure of society. The

American revolution is often considered a political revolution, not a social one because

it mostly sought to change the government, not the social life of the colonists. By

contrast, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the Communist Revolution of

1949 in China, and the Iranian Revolution of 1979 completely upended social norms

and rules. The Bolsheviks sought to eliminate the bourgeoisie (or capitalist) class of

society. (We will explore the case of Russia in more detail later in this chapter). Mao

social revolution succeeds even through violence, alternative centers of power are

destroyed, leaving society with nothing but the new order to rely on. Leaders often rely

on images of the respective revolutions to justify their continued rule (Way, 2023).

Classic examples of authoritarian regimes that employ all of these strategies are North

Korea, China, and Russia. However, it is worth investigating other examples that tend

to fly under the radar and are some of the most tightly controlled regimes in the world.

To explore how authoritarian states use these strategies, we turn to a case study of

Turkmenistan.

Snapshot Case Study: Turkmenistan

Full Country Name: Turkmenistan

Head(s) of State: President Serdar Berdimuhamedow

Total land size: 488,100 sq km, 188,456 sq mi

Population: 5,690,818

GDP: $92.331 billion

GDP per capita: $15,000

Currency: Turkmenistani Manat

Turkmenistan ranks 2/100 on Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index. This

score is a composite of political rights and civil liberties, in which the state scores 0/40

on the latter and 2/60 on the former. According to the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, it is the most authoritarian of all former Soviet states (Stronski,

power, the people of this region have experienced a long history of imperial rule. When

the Soviet Union dissolved suddenly, Turkmenistan became independent in 1991.

Saparmurat Niyazov, the leader of the Communist Party at the time, was quickly

elected president with no opposition. He took control of the party and the state and

began creating a cult of personality. He banned opposition parties and amended the

constitution to allow Niyazov the rule for life. Finally, he took on the moniker of

“Turkembashi,” which means “Leader of all Turkmen.” When he died unexpectedly

with no clear successor, a deputy prime minister, who might be the illegitimate son of

Niyazov, became president in an election with 89% of the vote. The new president,

Berdimuhamedow, initially rolled back some of the more draconian policies of his

predecessor, but the regime remained decidedly authoritarian. All information is

censored, foreigners find it very difficult to get a visa to travel there, and citizens have

to fund an extended security apparatus and strengthen patronage networks. This

includes a presidential private militia which answers directly to the president. The

Ministry of National Security took over the responsibilities of the KGB during the Soviet

period. If people are getting the services that they need, along with the knowledge that

they are being watched, this weakens the demand for more say in their government.

This effect is called the “rentier effect.”

The cult of personality continues with the Berdimuhamedow regime(s). This

tendency exists in postcolonial states that had a weak sense of national identity prior

to colonization. It is said that particularly extravagant praise for the regime results in

extra privileges for citizens. Therefore, the cult is sustained not just from above but

part of the legacy of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia that justified Soviet rule over

its republics. Communist and Soviet rule did recreate society in many facets from a

tribal culture. While under the Soviet Union, it was the poorest of the republics. It has

few trading partners outside of China and Russia, and therefore, little international

pressure to adopt more human rights. Therefore, much like North Korea, Turkmenistan

is a very closed society, and it is likely we do not have the full picture of the extent of

its authoritarianism. As far as we know, there has been little demand for reform, or any

opposition movement, and thus Turkmenistan can teach us a lot about how

authoritarian states remain in power over many decades.

Types of Authoritarian Regimes

Given the diversity of regimes that are commonly labeled “authoritarian,” one

not be thought of as distinct. This section will explore a few of the major types of non-

democracies that exist in the world, past and present.

Theocracy

Theocracies are as old as organized religion. Many theocracies are non-

democracies in which the authority of political leaders is grounded in a sacred text.

These texts provide divine legitimacy to political leaders, who are not accountable to

the public. Within theocracies, political institutions are organized in accordance with

prescriptions in a sacred text, notably executive office, the legal code, legal system,

and schools. Some current non-democratic theocracies are those organized around

to develop a cult of personality to justify their rule. This personality cult often includes

individual charisma of that leader or their ability to serve as a convincing interpreter of

a political ideology for all of society. An example of the former is Idi Amin of Uganda (r.

1971-1979), and an example of the latter is Fidel Castro of Cuba (r. 1959-2008). Some

personalist leaders come to power through family dynasties, such as the al-Assad

family in Syria. In all of these cases, personalist leaders are not subject to formal

mechanisms of accountability.

Personalist rule is often combined with other types of authoritarianism, for

example a charismatic leader may rely upon the organizational heft of a ruling party

or the military to remain in power. Idi Amin was a commander in the Ugandan army;

Fidel Castro commanded the formidable organizational apparatus of the Communist

Party of Cuba and Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. Personalist rule tends to be

A monarchy is similar to personalist rule in that there is a single leader, but the

bases of legitimacy tend to be grounded in tradition or family lineage. The Vatican City,

introduced previously as a theocracy, is also self-described as an “absolute monarchy”

because it is led by a pope. The only sovereign state that is currently an absolute

monarchy is Saudi Arabia. An absolute monarchy should be distinguished from a

constitutional monarchy, in which the state retains the monarchy for symbolic or

cultural reasons, but real political power lies with a legislature and executive. The

extent of the power retained by the monarchy can vary considerably. For example, the

Kingdom of Bahrain is a constitutional monarchy. The royal family has been in power

in 1783.

to the public for their actions. The Roman Republic was a kind of oligarchy in that only

the very wealthy could hold high political office. Political scientist Jeffrey Winters has

theorized that there are two key dimensions to oligarchies. First, the wealth of

oligarchs is difficult to seize and disperse. Second, their power extends systemically,

across the entire regime (Winters, 2011). In the contemporary world, some have

pointed to Russia as subject to a great deal of political influence by oligarchs, though

it is not formally an oligarchy. The overriding characteristic of single-party rule is

leadership by members of a political party. Prominent examples include the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1917-1991) and the PRI (Partido Revolucionario

Institucional) of Mexico (1929-2000). The latter is especially interesting because PRI

rule took place in an environment of multi-party competition, but the competition was

so skewed in favor of the PRI that Mexico was subject to single-party rule for decades.

led by a ruling party increased from 60 percent of all non-democracies to 85 percent.