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+ {"source_url": "http://www.taipeitimes.com", "url": "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/2003728574", "title": "The future of Putin\u2019s information autocracy", "top_image": "http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif", "meta_img": "http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif", "images": ["http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/images/top.gif", "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/images/logo1_forfooter.gif", "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/images/rss-icon.gif", "http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif", "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/images/arrow_more1.gif", "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/images/logo_News.gif"], "movies": [], "text": "By Sergei Guriev\n\nFrom Germany\u2019s Adolf Hitler to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to Chinese leader Mao Zedong (\u6bdb\u6fa4\u6771), the world\u2019s 20th-century dictators took to heart Niccolo Machiavelli\u2019s famous dictum that \u201cit is better to be feared than loved.\u201d\n\nYet, most modern dictators seem more concerned about maintaining their people\u2019s loyalty not by giving them what they want, but by manipulating them into thinking that they already have it. Nobody executes this approach more masterfully than Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nAlthough Putin\u2019s approval ratings have declined considerably over the past few years, they remain high, with polls indicating that 61 percent of Russians evaluate his performance positively.\n\nIf a presidential election were held today, 44 percent would vote for Putin. No other candidate would receive double-digit percentage support.\n\nPutin certainly does not owe his popularity to his economic leadership. Since recapturing the presidency in 2012, he has consistently failed to deliver on promises of reform, higher productivity and investment, and improvements in Russians\u2019 standard of living. His government also does not seem to have any plan to kick-start stagnant GDP growth.\n\nThe IMF expects Russia\u2019s annual GDP growth to average less than 2 percent over the next five years. Next year, Russia\u2019s share of global GDP (in purchasing parity terms) is expected to drop below 3 percent for the first time in modern times.\n\nIn nominal terms, this ratio will be even lower: an estimated 1.8 percent. Most importantly, the real incomes of Russian households are 10 percent lower than they were in 2014 \u2014 and show no signs of rising.\n\nSo what explains Putin\u2019s enduring popularity? The answer \u2014 for Putin and other modern autocrats \u2014 lies in the ability to control the information that people receive, which enables a leader to convince most of the population that, despite the regime\u2019s imperfections, it is the country\u2019s best option.\n\nIn the digital age, this is no easy feat. A growing number of educated citizens \u2014 or \u201cinformed elites\u201d \u2014 recognize the system\u2019s deficiencies. It is thus imperative for autocrats to prevent these elites from communicating the truth to the public.\n\nTARGETED REPRESSION\n\nRepression plays an important role here. However, far from the widely publicized mass repression of the past \u2014 aimed at scaring off all potential opposition \u2014 today\u2019s repression is targeted and, critically, deniable.\n\nRussian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was officially barred from running in the 2018 presidential election not for political reasons, but because of his fraud conviction, which was subsequently overturned by the European Court of Human Rights.\n\nThis approach enabled Putin to maintain the pretense that he secured power in a free and fair election.\n\nModern informational autocrats also make extensive use of censorship. Russia ranks in the bottom 20 percent of the press-freedom rankings compiled by Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders. Freedom House\u2019s Freedom on the Net Index shows that the Internet is less free in Russia than in Belarus, Kazakhstan or Turkey, reflecting the importance of online censorship in an informational autocracy with high Internet penetration.\n\nAccording to the Google Transparency Report, Russia leads the world in official requests to remove online content. In the first half of last year, Russia placed more than 10,000 requests to remove content. The second-place country, Turkey, had just 1,000 requests. (China is not included in the ranking.)", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["\u53f0\u5317\u6642\u5831", "The Taipei Times"], "tags": [], "authors": [], "publish_date": "Thu Jan 2 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "From Germany\u2019s Adolf Hitler to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to Chinese leader Mao Zedong (\u6bdb\u6fa4\u6771), the world\u2019s 20th-century dictators took to heart Niccolo Machiavelli\u2019s famous dictum that \u201cit is better to be feared than loved.\u201d", "meta_lang": "", "meta_favicon": "images/taipeitimes.ico", "meta_data": {"keywords": "\u53f0\u5317\u6642\u5831,The Taipei Times", "description": "From Germany\u2019s Adolf Hitler to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to Chinese leader Mao Zedong (\u6bdb\u6fa4\u6771), the world\u2019s 20th-century dictators took to heart Niccolo Machiavelli\u2019s famous dictum that \u201cit is better to be feared than loved.\u201d", "fb": {"app_id": 204610739643846}, "og": {"title": "The future of Putin\u2019s information autocracy - Taipei Times", "type": "website", "url": "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/2003728574", "description": "From Germany\u2019s Adolf Hitler to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to Chinese leader Mao Zedong (\u6bdb\u6fa4\u6771), the world\u2019s 20th-century dictators took to heart Niccolo Machiavelli\u2019s famous dictum that \u201cit is better to be feared than loved.\u201d", "image": "http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif"}}, "canonical_link": "http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/01/02/2003728574"}