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Indoctrination & Propaganda: Paper:
This paper summarizes an interdisciplinary literature on the politicization of education and the media around the world and outlines how the abstract concept of indoctrination can be operationalized. This research also introduces and validates the Varieties of Indoctrination (V-Indoc) dataset; an original expert-coded dataset on indoctrination. The dataset offers unrivalled coverage of 160 countries from 1945-2021, and presents 13 indices and 27 indicators on indoctrination efforts in education and the media that cover topics such as: indoctrination potential and content; patriotism in education and the media; centralization of the education system; politicization of the curriculum; control over teachers; state influence over the media The dataset is available on: https://shiny.cent.gla.ac.uk
Team: Anja Neundorf, Eugenia Nazrullaeva, Ksenia Northmore-Ball, Katerina Tertytchnaya, Wooseok Kim
Contemporary autocracies use the law to stifle their rivals’ ability and willingness to challenge the state. This work reviews recent literature on the origins and consequences of legal repression in electoral autocracies. It also discusses how, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the law has been used to exercise political power vis-à-vis the opposition. The discussion advances understanding of the consequences of legal repression on dissent, civil society, and the public. It also advances understanding of the dynamic nature of legal repression, illustrating how domestic and external events can cause growing investments in legal repression.
Team: Katerina Tertytchnaya and Madeleine Tiratsoo
Strategies of political control and regime survival in autocracies:
Autocracies combine different strategies to gain the support of elites and citizens. These include propaganda and indoctrination, the redistribution of goods, co-optation, and repression. Researchers typically examine these strategies in isolation. Few works consider the broad range of strategies autocrats use and how different strategies combined, explain regime survival. Combining data on a broad range of authoritarian tactics and using a sample of 229 regimes from 1946 to 2010, this paper shows that indoctrination through the media and the repression of civil liberty rights outperform the other strategies in explaining the longevity of autocracies.
Team: Wooseok Kim Eugenia NazrullaevaAnja Neundorf Ksenia Northmore-BallKaterina Tertytchnaya
Power personalization and indoctrination in dictatorships:
In contemporary autocracies, political power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a single leader. This work studies how the personalization of power shapes strategies of information control. The empirical analysis uses a mixed-methods approach, combining data from 212 authoritarian regimes from 1950 to 2010 and an in-depth study of Russia. Findings suggest that in the process of concentrating power, leaders increase state control over education and the media and shape their content to indoctrinate.
Team: Katerina Tertytchnaya, Wooseok Kim, Anja Neundorf, Ksenia Northmore-Ball, and Eugenia Nazrullaeva
The King Can Do No Wrong: Blame Games and Power Sharing in Authoritarian Regimes. 2024. Cambridge University Press.
Why are some autocrats more effective than others at retaining popular support even when their governments perform poorly? To develop insights into popular politics and governance across authoritarian regimes, this book stresses the importance of understanding autocratic blame games. Scott Williamson argues that how autocrats share power affects their ability to shift blame, so that they are less vulnerable to the public's grievances when they delegate decision-making powers to other political elites.
Author: Scott Williamson
Executive Compliance with Parliamentary Powers under Authoritarianism: Evidence from Jordan. 2024. Governance. (With Marwa Shalaby).
When are executives in authoritarian regimes more likely to comply with formal legislative powers? Building from theories of authoritarian power-sharing, we argue that executives will be more likely to respect legislative prerogatives when protests or elite organization increase the ability of legislators to undermine the executive's political position. We evaluate this argument by analysing novel protest and legislative data in Jordan between 2010 and 2015. In line with our expectations, we find that parliamentary queries were more likely to receive the required response from the cabinet during months of higher protest activity and when they were submitted by MPs from Jordan's only well-organized, opposition bloc in the parliament.
Author: Scott Williamson (With Marwa Shalaby)
Elections, Legitimacy, and Compliance in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from the Arab World. 2021. Democratization.
Elections have been theorized to bolster compliance with authoritarian regimes by strengthening their ability to co-opt, their coercive capacity, and their legitimacy. While a growing body of research demonstrates the co-optive and coercive functions of these elections, there is little systematic empirical evidence regarding elections' contributions to the legitimacy of autocrats. This paper draws on observational and experimental survey data from authoritarian countries in the Arab world to show that respondents who perceive elections as more free and fair are more likely to express acceptance of the regime's right to govern and less likely to participate in political protests. The findings indicate the importance of studying how authoritarian institutions influence popular beliefs about the legitimacy of autocratic rulers.
Author: Scott Williamson