Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief

A  dictator's power is secure, the authors begin in this muscular,  impressive study, only as long as citizens believe in it. When citizens  suddenly believe otherwise, a dictator's power is anything but, as the  Soviet Union's collapse revealed. This conviction – that power rests  ultimately on citizens' beliefs – compels the world's autocrats to  invest in sophisticated propaganda. This study draws on the first global  data set of autocratic propaganda, encompassing nearly eight million  newspaper articles from fifty-nine countries in six languages. The  authors document dramatic variation in propaganda across autocracies: in  coverage of the regime and its opponents, in narratives about domestic  and international life, in the threats of violence issued to citizens,  and in the domestic events that shape it. The book explains why Russian  President Vladimir uses Donald Trump as a propaganda tool and why  Chinese state propaganda is more effusive than any point since the  Cultural Revolution.