DWA 227 · Authoritarianism in the Age of Globalization · Week 5 · Tue Sep 22 & Thu Sep 24

Spin in Practice:
Media, Information, and Legitimation

Warm-up · State Duma election · Sep 18–20, 2026

Party-list vote, 2021 vs 2026

355 / 450

United Russia seats (209 list + 208 districts); 324 in 2021

59.3%

turnout, reported by election officials as the highest for a Duma vote

▶ Rosenberg: the morning papers

BBC’s Steve Rosenberg reads the Russian press on the result (from 1:03)

Warm-up · Central Military Commission, 2022 → Sep 21, 2026

“formed cliques and factions, and were disloyal and dishonest to the party”

7 → 2

active CMC members since the 2022 Party Congress (Xi and Zhang Shengmin)

101

senior officers at CMC, theater-command, or deputy grade “dismissed or gone missing” since 2022

▶ Vantage: the two generals

Firstpost (India), “Xi’s New Purge: 2 Top Chinese Generals Expelled for ‘Disloyalty’”

A framework for the week · three texts, three vantage points

Who handles the information

Text	Vantage point	Mechanism	In the text’s words
Guriev & Treisman 2019	The ruler	“buying the elite’s silence, censoring private media, and broadcasting propaganda” 123	“rulers survive by leading citizens to believe—rationally but incorrectly—that they are competent and public-spirited” 101
Miłosz 1953, “Ketman”	The subject	Outward conformity with private divergence, sustained across years guide §2	Seven varieties: national, revolutionary-purity, aesthetic, professional, skeptical, metaphysical, ethical guide §3
Applebaum 2024	Across borders	“a narrative that damages both the idea of democracy everywhere in the world and the tools to deliver it”	“Fear, cynicism, nihilism, and apathy, coupled with disgust and disdain for democracy”

Part I · The ruler · Guriev & Treisman

The key to such regimes, we argue, is the manipulation of information. Rather than terrorizing or indoctrinating the population, rulers survive by leading citizens to believe—rationally but incorrectly—that they are competent and public-spirited. Having won popularity, dictators score points both at home and abroad by mimicking democracy. Guriev & Treisman 2019: 101

Part I · The ruler · three actors

Ruler, informed elite, public

Moves in the game

Ruler — censor · “buy the elite’s silence” · “propaganda” blaming external conditions · or spend on living standards

Informed elite — observe competence · “send messages to the public” · or stay silent

Public — infer competence from what reaches it · revolt if it concludes the ruler is incompetent · or acquiesce

Part I · The ruler · when the equilibrium holds

“two key variables”

“the size of the informed elite”
“the ease with which, given technology, the state can monopolize the media”

Highly modern

“the informed elite is generally too large for manipulation to work … democracy is the only option”

Intermediate

“both democracy and informational autocracy are possible outcomes”

Undeveloped

“repression often remains more cost effective”

Part I · The ruler · indirect censorship

“less obvious techniques”

Singapore — Lee Kuan Yew “co-opted shareholders in key media companies”; boards “did the censoring for him”; lawsuits when loyalty failed
Hungary — Orbán “starved critical radio stations of state advertising”
Russia — Putin “often relied on surrogates and economic pressure to keep editors and journalists in line” (Gehlbach 2010: 78)
Peru — “Fujimori bribed most private media”
China — “blocking websites outright inspires net users to ‘jump the great firewall,’ but introducing technical search friction does not” (Roberts 2018)

Part I · The ruler · perceived media freedom, elite vs. public

“Do the media in this country have a lot of freedom, or not?”

0 pts

elite–public gap where the press is free

≈ 8 pts

gap at the most censored end — elite less likely to say “yes”

2006–2017

Gallup World Poll, ~1,000 respondents per country-year, 120+ countries

Elite proxy: completed tertiary education. Country-year fixed effects; press freedom per Freedom House.

Part I · The ruler · approval of leadership, elite vs. public

“Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of this country?”

Autocracies and flawed democracies · Polity2 ≤ 8

“approval of the national leadership was lower among the highly educated”

Consolidated democracies · Polity2 9–10

“the highly educated were, if anything, more supportive of their government”

Placebo: life satisfaction of the highly educated in nondemocracies — “substantially higher.” Controlling for income: “education remained associated with lower approval, while the effect of income was insignificant.”

Part I · The ruler · “Other Theories of Modern Authoritarian Governance”

It is not that citizens cannot coordinate to resist them: many do not want to. … At least some dictators in power today survive not by preventing the masses from rebelling, but by removing their desire to do so. Guriev & Treisman 2019: 121

Contrasted there with: King, Pan & Roberts 2013 (censoring calls for collective action); Edmond 2013 and Huang 2015 (propaganda about repressive capacity); Chen & Xu 2017 (dividing opponents).

Part I · The ruler · film · ~30 min

China — Surveillance state or way of the future?

DW Documentary, 2021 · 42 min · facial recognition, social credit, the camera network

▶ youtube.com/watch?v=7gSU_Xes3GQ

While watching: note one moment that matches G&T’s “if censored sparingly, social networks can be used by the state as a tool of surveillance” (118), and one that does not fit the informational-autocrat model.

Part I · The ruler · Depth · Rozenas & Stukal 2019

Economic news on Russian state television

Bad news is not censored, but it is systematically blamed on external factors, whereas good news is systematically attributed to domestic politicians. Rozenas & Stukal, “How Autocrats Manipulate Economic News,” Journal of Politics 81(3), 2019, abstract

Data: daily news reports from Russia’s largest state-owned television network
Pattern intensifies around elections and protests, and when leadership approval is high
cf. G&T 2019: 117 — the ruler “can also send ‘propaganda’ messages, blaming economic failures on external conditions”

Part II · The subject · Havel

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” (1978), § III — Depth reading

Part II · The subject · Miłosz, The Captive Mind (1953)

Ketman

1865

Gobineau, Les religions et les philosophies dans l’Asie centrale — Persian religious minorities professing an orthodoxy they privately reject; cognate with taqiyya

1953

Miłosz repurposes the term for Stalinist Poland: a sustained, internally coherent performance of loyalty by people who retain incompatible beliefs

Alpha · Beta · Gamma · Delta

the four composite portraits the chapter generalizes from — the Moralist, the Disappointed Lover, the Slave of History, the Troubadour

Part II · The subject · Miłosz · the varieties

Variety	Public performance	Private retention
National	Internationalist, Party-line solidarity	Ordinary national feeling
Revolutionary purity	More doctrinally rigorous devotion than one feels	Cover through out-orthodoxing the orthodoxy
Aesthetic	Work that meets socialist-realist requirements	Other aesthetic commitments, sometimes smuggled in
Professional	The required vocabulary and positions of one’s field	The condition of being allowed to keep working
Skeptical	Full public compliance	Cultivated irony: “I don’t really believe any of this”
Metaphysical	Atheist, materialist public identity	Religious or metaphysical belief
Ethical	A system that subordinates ethics to historical necessity	An inherited sense of right and wrong

Part II · The subject · Havel · Depth

What the sign says

In the window

“Workers of the world, unite!”

Havel’s reading of it

“I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach.”

For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.

Part II · The subject · Orwell · Depth

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.

Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946)

Part II · The subject · Depth · Frye, Gehlbach, Marquardt & Reuter 2017

“Is Putin’s popularity real?”

86% · 88%

approve of Putin, direct question (Jan · Mar 2015)

79–81%

list-experiment estimates, same surveys (~1,600 respondents per wave)

6–9 pts

“lower than those from the corresponding direct question”

Taken in total, we conclude that much of the support for Putin is genuine and not the consequence of social desirability bias. Frye et al., Post-Soviet Affairs 33(1), 2017: 10

Part II · The subject · discussion · 8 minutes, pairs

Discussion

Guriev & Treisman 2019: 117

“such manipulation works only if the public does not detect it.”

Companion guide, § 2 (on Miłosz)

A performance carried out “by people who privately retain incompatible beliefs.”

Task: take one of the Frye et al. respondents who answers “approve.” Decide which description fits that respondent, and what evidence would tell the two apart. One sentence per pair; report out.

Part III · Across borders · Applebaum

If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned. That requires more than surveillance, more than close observation of the population, more than a political system that defends against liberal ideas. It also requires an offensive plan. Applebaum, “The New Propaganda War,” The Atlantic, June 2024

Part III · Across borders · Applebaum · then and now

Twentieth century

“Communist Party propaganda was overwhelming and inspiring, or at least it was meant to be. The future it portrayed was shiny and idealized, a vision of clean factories, abundant produce, and healthy tractor drivers with large muscles and square jaws.”

Now

“they teach people to be cynical and passive, apathetic and afraid, because there is no better world to build.” “Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong. The democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.”

Part III · Across borders · Applebaum · MH17, 2014

After Russian-controlled forces shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, the Russian government reacted not only with a denial, but with multiple stories, plausible and implausible: It blamed the Ukrainian army, and the CIA, and a nefarious plot in which dead people were placed on a plane in order to fake a crash and discredit Russia. This tactic—the so-called fire hose of falsehoods—ultimately produces not outrage but nihilism. Applebaum 2024

“When Soviet leaders lied, they tried to make their falsehoods seem real. They became angry when anyone accused them of lying.”

Part III · Across borders · Applebaum · the infrastructure

“some overt and some covert, some aimed at the public and some aimed at elites”

Document No. 9 (China, 2013) — “seven perils”: “Western constitutional democracy,” “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” “civic participation”
Xinhua, CGTN, China Radio International, China Daily — feeds “at low prices, sometimes for free”; regional hub in Nairobi; “borrowing boats to reach the sea”
StarTimes (since 2008) — 13 million subscribers, 30+ African countries; picked up RT after satellite networks dropped it
RRN / Doppelganger — “typosquatter”: Reuters.cfd, Spiegel.pro; 300+ sites targeting Europe, the Middle East, Latin America
Global Engagement Center (U.S. State Dept., 2016–) — 125 staff, $61 million; mandate outside the United States only

Part III · Across borders · Applebaum · one story, February–March 2022

“secret U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine”

Synthesis · three vantage points

Text	Vantage point	What the information does	Key term
Guriev & Treisman 2019	The ruler	Keeps the elite from “revealing the regime’s flaws to the general public” 117	informational autocrat · informed elite
Rozenas & Stukal 2019 Depth	The ruler	Bad news “blamed on external factors”; good news “attributed to domestic politicians”	selective attribution
Miłosz 1953	The subject	Outward conformity, private divergence, over years guide §2	Ketman (seven varieties)
Havel 1978 Depth	The subject	“individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system”	the greengrocer’s sign
Frye et al. 2017 Depth	The subject, measured	List experiment 6–9 pts below direct question; “much of the support for Putin is genuine” 8, 10	list experiment
Applebaum 2024	Across borders	“the very ideas of democracy and freedom must be discredited—especially in the places where they have historically flourished”	fire hose of falsehoods · information laundering

Thursday Sep 24 · guest, in class

Jason Bell

Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the North American Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War (HarperCollins, 2026)

March 1944 — three OSS officers, Guy Nunn, Florimond Duke, and Alfred Suarez, parachute into Axis-allied Hungary
“the only mission of the war designed to result in capture, interrogation and incarceration at the hands of the Nazis” — to point the Germans toward the Balkans ahead of Normandy
Spring 1945 — liberated from Colditz Castle
Nunn: Occidental College, football team captain, 1934

This week and next

Wed Sep 23, 8 pm — Connector/Applier post in the shared doc
Thu Sep 24 — Jason Bell in class; midterm question pool circulated (blue-book midterm Thu Oct 8)
Tue Sep 29 — Week 6, Democracy & Authoritarianism in Africa: Opalo (JoD 2024); Ero & Mutiga (Foreign Affairs 2024); Elischer (OECD 2023)
Thu Oct 1 — Amb. Virginia Palmer joins the discussion (class visit only)