A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader,or a group of leaders,who hold governmental powers with few to no limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator,and they are facilitated through an inner circle of elites that includes advisers,generals,and other high-ranking officials. The dictator maintains control by influencing and appeasing the inner circle and repressing any opposition,which may include rival political parties,armed resistance,or disloyal members of the dictator's inner circle. Dictatorships can be formed by a military coup that overthrows the previous government through force or they can be formed by a self-coup in which elected leaders make their rule permanent. Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian,and they can be classified as military dictatorships,one-party dictatorships,personalist dictatorships,or absolute monarchies.
A military dictatorship,or a military regime,is a type of dictatorship in which power is held by one or more military officers. Military dictatorships are led by either a single military dictator,known as a strongman,or by a council of military officers known as a military junta. They are most often formed by military coups or by the empowerment of the military through a popular uprising in times of domestic unrest or instability. The military nominally seeks power to restore order or fight corruption,but the personal motivations of military officers will vary.
Centralisation or centralization is the process by which the activities of an entity or organization,particularly those regarding planning,decision-making and control of strategies and policies,become concentrated within a particular group,sector,department or region within that entity or organization. This creates a power structure where the said group,known as head or core group,occupies the highest level of hierarchy and has significantly more authority,prestige and influence over the other groups,who are considered its subordinates.
Democratization,or democratisation,is the structural government transition from an authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime,including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.
Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested,which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property.
Andrei Shleifer is a Russian-American economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard University,where he has taught since 1991. Shleifer was awarded the biennial John Bates Clark Medal in 1999 for his seminal works in three fields:corporate finance,the economics of financial markets,and the economics of transition.
The resource curse,also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox,is the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources having less economic growth,less democracy,or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. There are many theories and much academic debate about the reasons for and exceptions to the adverse outcomes. Most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions.
Kamer Daron Acemoğlu is a Turkish American economist of Armenian descent who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1993,where he is currently the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics. He received the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005,and was named an Institute Professor at MIT in 2019.
In politics,a strongman is a type of authoritarian political leader—civilian or military—who exerts control through military enforcement and has,or has claimed to have,strong popular support. Strongmen typically claim to have widespread popular support,portray themselves as the only one capable of solving the country's problems,and espouse a disdain for liberalism and democracy.
Simeon Dyankov is a Bulgarian economist. From 2009 to 2013,he was the deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Bulgaria in the government of Boyko Borisov. He has been a vocal supporter of Bulgaria's entry into the Eurozone. Before his cabinet appointment,he was the chief economist of the finance and private sector vice-presidency of the World Bank.
Guided democracy,also called directed democracy and managed democracy,is a formally democratic government that functions as a de facto authoritarian government or,in some cases,as an autocratic government. Such hybrid regimes are legitimized by elections,but do not change the state's policies,motives,and goals.
Economics of corruption deals with the misuse of public power for private benefit and its economic impact on society. The goal of the discipline is to study the causes and consequences of corruption and how it affects the economical functioning of the state.
Civil service reform is a deliberate action to improve the efficiency,effectiveness,professionalism,representativity and democratic character of a civil service,with a view to promoting better delivery of public goods and services,with increased accountability. Such actions can include data gathering and analysis,organizational restructuring,improving human resource management and training,enhancing pay and benefits while assuring sustainability under overall fiscal constraints,and strengthening measures for performance management,public participation,transparency,and combating corruption.
State media are typically understood as media outlets that are owned,operated,or significantly influenced by the government. They are distinguished from public service media,which are designed to serve the public interest,operate independently of government control,and are financed through a combination of public funding,licensing fees,and sometimes advertising. The crucial difference lies in the level of independence from government influence and the commitment to serving a broad public interest rather than the interests of a specific political party or government agenda.
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality,the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo,and reductions in democracy,separation of powers,civil liberties,and the rule of law. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies","hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
Sergey Maratovich Guriyev is a Russian economist,who is provost and a professor of economics at the Institut d’études politiques in Paris. From 2016 to 2019,he was the chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He was a Morgan Stanley Professor of Economics and a rector at Moscow’s New Economic School (NES) until he resigned on 30 April 2013 and fled to France. In January 2024,he was announced as the incoming Dean of London Business School,succeeding François Ortalo-Magné.
Konstantin Sonin is a Russian economist. He is a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy,research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR),London,and an associate research fellow at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics. In recognition for his outstanding research in the field of political economy,in December 2015,he was named the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of the University of Chicago.
Conservatism in Russia is a broad system of political beliefs in Russia that is characterized by support for Orthodox values,Russian imperialism,statism,economic interventionism,advocacy for the historical Russian sphere of influence,and a rejection of late modernist era Western culture.
Spin Dictators:The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century is a political science book by Russian economist Sergey Guriyev and American political scientist Daniel Treisman. It examines how modern dictators and autocrats –pioneered by Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Alberto Fujimori of Peru,and replicated by Vladimir Putin of Russia,Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey,and Viktor Orbán of Hungary –focus more on propaganda methods such as spin,disinformation,and psychologically keeping their populations in fear of the Other,instead of the more overtly brutal methods of political repression favoured by dictators of the past such as Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union or Mao Zedong of China.
An informational autocracy,also called a spin dictatorship,is a state that uses censorship and propaganda,rather than violent coercion or vote-rigging,to remain in power. The concept was proposed by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman in a 2020 paper. An informational autocracy does not use violence or direct repression on its political opponents. It also creates its own institutions that mimic democratic institutions. The final characteristic of these regimes is that they have little support with the educated elite,but have wide support among the less-educated masses.
