BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians
alternative perspectives are permitted on a carefully rationed basis. But dissenting opinions are invari-
ably subjected to relentless attack and ridicule, and the dissidents themselves face a form of character assassination in which their views are twisted to make them appear foolish, extreme, unpatriotic, or immoral.
Christopher Walker, a vice president at the National Endowment for Democracy who has written exten- sively on modern authoritarianism, believes that con- trol of information is the most important achievement of today’s generation of autocrats:
| think modern authoritarians have been adept at adjusting to the new environment. They recognize that trying to control the wealth of information out there is impossi- ble, and therefore they don't try. There are
a number of countries which have found effective ways to incorporate entertainment and culture into their media offerings while keeping domination over the political sphere. They have thus defied the assumptions we held 20 years ago when the internet was emerging. The conventional wisdom then was that the internet guaranteed media diversity, and there is no way regimes could keep the genie in the bottle. In fact, in many countries authoritarians have kept the genie in the bottle through managing the political narrative and denying people access to key information.’*
Walker's comments certainly apply to conditions in Rus- sia. During the communist period, Soviet propaganda was meant to justify both state socialism and Russia's isolation from the global economic system and Western culture. In Russia, China, and elsewhere, it is now pos- sible for citizens to enjoy the latest international music, fashion, and entertainment while hating the liberal values that are systematically disparaged in the media.
What is tragic about all this is that Russians already came through a decades-long period of propaganda in which reality was twisted and lies circulated as a conscious matter of national policy. Orwell and other foes of totalitarian rule sought to describe the danger that propaganda and censorship posed to knowl- edge, reality, and independent thought. But instead of things getting better after the demise of totalitarian- ism, a newer and in some ways more insidious form of information control has emerged, one which does not so much try to persuade people that the government
line is the only correct line, but that facts do not exist as such and nothing can be believed.
China: 21st-century censorship
The Chinese model of information control differs in crucial ways from the propaganda methods favored by Russia. Especially in its policies towards the internet, China focuses its energies on preventing access to in- formation or news on a wide and perpetually evolving range of subjects that the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as sensitive.
Under Xi Jinping, who took power in late 2012, the government has been much more open in arguing for the right of the political leadership to censor internet content. He has, in fact, launched a campaign de- signed to radically redraw the global rules on internet freedom so as to enshrine the concept of “internet sovereignty,” according to which individual countries would “independently choose their own path of cyber development” and “model of cyber regulation."
In late 2015, Xi also made the baffling statement, “Freedom is what order is meant for, and order is
the guarantee of freedom."!* Over the next several months, regulators moved to enforce the president's vision for tighter CCP control over all news media and imposed rules that further restricted the production of independent news content by online outlets.!”
Perhaps most important have been the threats to the livelihood and personal liberty of bloggers and online commentators. In recent years, the state has pursued a campaign of arrest, prosecution, and public humil- iation directed against well-known microbloggers and other media personalities, including a series of televised “confessions.” The machinery of repression was directed against those who had used their plat- forms to criticize the leadership or its policies, and to a disturbing extent, the effort has been successful in silencing such criticism.
Among other recent developments in the CCP’s cen- sorship drive:
¢ The authorities have punished journalists for publishing news about the economy that highlighted negative trends, and issued media directives aimed at shaping coverage of econo- my-related topics. The economy was the second most censored topic in China in 2015, a year that featured a dramatic stock-market crash and slowing economic growth.!®
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