Spin Dictators

Hitler, Stalin and Mao held power mainly through brutality, terror and ideology. In recent decades, a different kind of strongman has emerged, one who understands the media and operates in a world of global links. Rather than relying on open mass repression, leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Viktor Orbán keep their populations compliant by bending the flow of information and staging the outward forms of democracy. Much as political consultants in free countries shape the news to build support, these rulers manufacture public backing.

Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman set out to explain this type of authoritarian, whom they call "spin dictators." They examine how such regimes take shape, how they function day to day, what dangers they present, and how democratic societies might respond. Their account begins with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Peru's Alberto Fujimori, who developed subtler and more covert ways of concentrating power that involved less violence and proved more effective. These leaders built a reputation for competence, hid censorship from view, subverted the very institutions meant to sustain democracy, and deepened ties with the international community to gain financial and reputational advantages.

The authors argue that most of today's authoritarians fall into the spin category. They contrast these rulers with "fear dictators" such as Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad, and with the high-tech repression practiced by Xi Jinping. Throughout, the book offers detailed portraits of current authoritarian leaders.

The book also takes up larger puzzles of the era, including how autocrats manage to endure in an age of growing modernity, and why dictators and populists such as Donald Trump have drawn closer together and come to view one another sympathetically.