List of Authoritarianism articles
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Taika Waititi and Roman Griffin Davis in the 2019 film Jojo Rabbit. Fascists Know How to Turn Mockery Into Power
Satirists who mean to cut down fascists can end up boosting their ideas.
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President of Belarus Alexandr Lukashenko wipes his face as he gives a speech during a rally of his supporters in Independence Square in Minsk on Aug. 16. Lukashenko’s Fall Is Happening Hard and Fast
The Belarusian dictator bet everything on force. Now he's becoming a dangerous joke.
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Demonstrators gather on 16th Street across from Lafayette Park while protesting peacefully against police brutality and racism on June 6 in Washington, DC. Why Protests Threaten Dictatorships but Make Democracies Stronger
Democracies have greater legitimacy because citizens largely support the system and its institutions. Dictatorships rely on performance—and they fail when they don’t produce results.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin talks to his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev in Baku, Azerbaijan in December 2003. Putin Is Ruling Russia Like a Central Asian Dictator
The Kremlin didn’t invent term limit resets and constitutional referendums. The autocratic leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan blazed the trail.
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Police officers stand guard outside the headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Services (FSB) in central Moscow on July 7, 2020. Putin’s Security Forces Are Increasingly Unsure About Putin
Anti-government protests are growing, and the Kremlin doesn’t have stormtroopers willing to mount a crackdown.
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An Al-Jazeera channel's journalist stands inside the defendants cage with his colleagues during their trial for allegedly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood at Cairo's Tora prison on March 22, 2014. Arab Dictators Are Learning to Love Collective Punishment
Middle Eastern regimes increasingly aren’t just targeting dissidents—they’re going after their entire families.
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Coal heavers wear sandwich boards to protest against low wages in 1921. When Everything Is a Crisis, Nothing Is
Invoking crisis is a favorite tactic of dictators—and widespread misuse of the word robs it of its power.
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Federal officers stand guard after dispersing protesters in Portland, Oregon, on July 21. In Portland, the Baby Fascists Have Shown Their Face
Fascism can happen in America. Some of it has already happened, and more will happen as Trump fights to stay in power.
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Italy’s Benito Mussolini addresses a crowd in Rome on April 15, 1934. Why Fascists Fail
History’s autocrats have been the architects of their own demise. Even if he seizes power, so will Trump.
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Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa Is Sri Lanka Becoming a De Facto Junta?
In under a year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa—the former defense secretary-turned-president—has bent the democracy to its breaking point.
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Charles Lindbergh (left), with R. Douglas Stuart Jr., the founder of the America First Committee, when the flyer enrolled as a member in Chicago in 1940. Pacifists Are Vulnerable to Fascism’s Whispers
Principled anti-war movements are in danger of being co-opted by opportunistic authoritarians.
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A view of the campus of Harvard Business School. Our Top Weekend Reads
Britain is becoming like America, the Egyptian government is facing pressure on social media, and sending international students home could undermine U.S. soft power.
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Members of the Broadway cast of 'Hamilton,' perform music from the production for President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and other guests in the East Room of the White House on March 14, 2016 in Washington. Does ‘Hamilton’ Have All the Answers for U.S. Foreign Policy?
The Broadway musical offers lessons on everything from regime change to balancing ideals and interests.
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U.S. President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he arrives for an Independence Day event at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota on July 3, 2020. Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech Is the Closest He’s Come to Fascism
The world just lost its leading historian of fascist ideology. The late historian Zeev Sternhell would have recognized the president’s lies as propaganda in the tradition of Mussolini.
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U.S. President Donald Trump The Free World’s Leader Isn’t Free Anymore
As the quality of U.S. democracy erodes, the reasons are dwindling for anyone to look to it for guidance.
