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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 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