2 kinds of authoritarians: those that sideline opposition through peaceful means or using violence

[pampango]

The Killing of Boris Nemtsov and the Degradation of Russian Authoritarianism

Authoritarian regimes come in different shapes and sizes. In some states, the political opposition is deprived of power, influence, and participation in political life through peaceful, non-violent means. In others, the killing of opposition politicians is just a regular occurrence. In Malaysia, a key opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, may be tried for sodomy; in Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra may be kept out of the country; in China, former Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang was placed under permanent house arrest. But in the days of authoritarianism in Argentina or Chile, for example, no one was surprised when opposition politicians were found dead or just went missing. Only years later did we learn about the secret concentration camps or how political opponents were thrown into the ocean from helicopters.

Until Friday night, none of us realized how much Russia belonged to the second type of a dictatorship in which, after another round of lashing out at the regime and its leader, a long-time professional opposition member quietly goes for dinner at a historic shopping mall and then proceeds to walk the streets of the capital. What might seem like an unthinkable luxury to an Argentine, Mexican, Pakistani, or Chinese opposition member surprised no one in Russia. Until this Friday night. That night we witnessed a new iteration of Russian authoritarianism, one which is increasingly shifting from a pragmatic dictatorship toward an ideology-driven dictatorship of self-preservation.

This doesn’t usually happen in places where the people and the leadership consolidate as a result of improved living standards, which is what happened in the first decade of Putin’s tenure or in China during the 1990’s and 2000’s. It happens in societies that consolidate around opposing an enemy. In such societies, the regime mercilessly divides people into good and bad in order to preserve itself, to eliminate uncomfortable questions, or to spur approval for its policies. The good people remain full-fledged citizens and are protected by law, however imperfect it might be. The bad ones are stripped of their citizenship and legal protections. Only those in accord are entitled to utter their “Civis Romanus sum,” while the dissenters become another line in the invisible, or sometimes quite visible, proscription list. Just take a look at radical patriotic web sites—they are rife with such lists of enemies and traitors who have to be punished.

In recent years, the Russian lexicon has been “enriched” by a series of labels for those opposed to crucial domestic and foreign policy decisions—for example, Putin’s return to the presidency, the construction of national identity around sexual orientation, the annexation of Crimea, and the intervention in Ukraine. The dissenters are called traitors, the “fifth column,” enemy collaborators, and destroyers of the country and its values.

http://carnegie.ru/eurasiaoutlook/?fa=59212

It is sad to see a country fall into a situation where an authoritarian leader uses fear of foreigners and domestic dissent to rally the population around him.