What, Me a Dictator? Forget clumsy commissars and caudillos. Savvy strongmen now invoke democracy...
What, Me a Dictator? Forget clumsy commissars and caudillos. Savvy strongmen now invoke democracy and intimidate quietly.
In March 2011, a few weeks after the crowds had left Tahrir Square, I sat down with Sherif Mickawi, a former Egyptian air-force engineer turned political activist. He was one of the young leaders who had helped rally the people to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak. But despite the democratic revolution's success, Mr. Mickawi was worried.
"They understand the game now," he said, wringing his hands. "When a big storm comes, you need to lean with it. When the storm leaves, you can stand up again. They don't mean to lose what they have."
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Today's smarter dictators, by contrast, understand that in a globalized world, the more brutal forms of intimidation—mass arrests, firing squads, violent crackdowns—are best replaced with more subtle forms of coercion.
Rather than arrest members of human-rights groups, Russia's Vladimir Putin deploys tax collectors or health inspectors to shut down dissident groups. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez ensures that laws are written broadly and then uses them like a scalpel to target groups that he deems a threat. Rather than shutter all media, modern-day despots make exceptions for small outlets—usually newspapers—that allow for a limited public discussion. (After all, the regime needs someone to investigate corruption.)
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