#Authoritarianism
News
When Soldiers Became Jurists: The Legal Origins of Indonesia’s Authoritarianism
How did Indonesia’s military learn to rule through law? This essay argues that a “military-juridical nexus” between civilian jurists and army officers in the 1950s built the legal foundations of authoritarianism—transforming emergency powers into durable institutions that continue to shape Indonesia’s civil–military relations today.
11.03.2026
News
Why Democratic Strategy Must Rethink Authoritarianism Today
While observations of developments on the global scale always conceal a great amount of nuances, trends can nevertheless be discerned. One such significant trend in contemporary global society is the retreat of democracy: the world in general is more authoritarian than it was a decade or two ago.
3.02.2026
News
The Unyielding Power of Authoritarianism: Hasina’s Failed Cards to Stop Bangladesh’s July 2024 Uprising
Bangladesh’s July 2024 uprising exposed the limits of authoritarian control. Despite deploying repression, censorship, legal manipulation, and disinformation, the Hasina regime failed to contain a decentralized, student-led movement that ultimately forced its collapse.
28.01.2026
News
Playing Constitutional Hardball in Spain
Spain’s political struggles reveal how democratic erosion increasingly unfolds through boundary-pushing legal tactics rather than overt authoritarian ruptures. These dynamics illuminate a broader pattern in which the letter of the law is upheld while its spirit is strategically hollowed out.
3.12.2025
News
Rebels with a Welfare Cause: Turkey’s Youth Rising against Authoritarianism
After Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s imprisonment in March 2025, youth-led protests swept Turkey. Fueled by digital activism and pop culture, this new resistance converges with social policy innovations in opposition-run cities, marking a generational shift in how dissent and governance challenge authoritarianism.
22.08.2025
Podcasts
From Competitive Authoritarian to Hegemonic: Berk Esen on the Decline of Turkish Democracy and the Prospects for Its Revival (Part 1)
In Part 1 of our latest edition in the special series in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, Berk Esen unpacks how Turkey’s competitive authoritarian regime is veering toward full autocracy.
13.08.2025
News
What’s Radish Got to Do with Turkish Democracy?
When a Turkish proverb resurfaces at the heart of a political storm, it’s worth paying attention. Through the recent arrests of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and his colleagues, Ece Özbey traces the chilling implications of the deepening erosion of democratic norms and judicial independence in Turkey—and the defiant stirrings of civic resistance under Erdoğan’s tightening grip on the country.
28.03.2025
Podcasts
Beyond Narratives, Personas and Spectacles: A Conversation on Illiberal and Authoritarian Practices
In this episode of the Democracy After 2024 series, Dorjana Bojanovska Popovska hosts Marlies Glasius for a discussion that goes beyond traditional regime-type classifications and the public/private divide, by looking at examples of illiberal and authoritarian practices that emerged or peaked in 2024 as well as their diffusion across different contexts.
6.03.2025
News
Why Misinformation Thrives in Autocracies: Spread from the Top, Delivered by TV, Believed by Partisans
Misinformation thrives in competitive autocracies, where governments manipulate information to control narratives and foster uncertainty around political events. Yet, its dynamics in these contexts remain underexplored. Our recent study on Turkey reveals that partisanship and selective exposure drive misinformation beliefs – but surprisingly, not via social media, rather through television.
11.02.2025
News
Authoritarian International Law? – In Conversation with Tom Ginsburg
International law is a live instrument in the current global geopolitical crisis. This latest RevDem Rule of Law podcast, conducted by Konstantin Kipp with Professor Tom Ginsburg, reflects upon the potentially authoritarian nature of international law in its function of enabling relations between states.
13.12.2024
Podcasts
What Drives Ordinary People to Espouse Authoritarian Figures? Kristóf Szombati on the Spatial Origins of Right-Wing Authoritarianism
The countryside has often been seen as a space where politics flows to, but does not grow out of. When it comes to the authoritarian right, this could not be further from the truth. So what draws people in rural areas to seek an ordered world? In this first episode of their new podcast This Authoritarian Life RevDem Editor Kristóf Szombati and his co-host Erdem Evren embark on an exploration of the origins of contemporary authoritarianism by inspecting the case of rural Hungary, where Kristóf had worked both as an anthropologist and a community worker. What dislocations fueled the rise of the far-right Jobbik party and what did Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party offer to temper popular discontents?
15.10.2024
Podcasts
The Regime Change Has To Be Performed by Russians Themselves – Roland Freudenstein on Russia, the War in Ukraine, and Autocrats in Europe
In our new podcast, Roland Freudenstein, Director of the Free Russia Foundation Brussels, and Founder and Executive Officer of the Brussels Freedom Hub discusses Russia’s geopolitical ambitions, how the war in Ukraine may end, and the potentials for a regime change in Moscow; reflects on democratic backsliding in EU Member States; and shares his thoughts about autocrats and how societies can be more resilient against authoritarianism.
9.10.2024
Book Reviews
How Do Autocrats Campaign Online? – Caglar Ozturk reviews Marc Owen Jones’ Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation, and Social Media
The book argues that authoritarian rulers in the Middle East fund nefarious activities online to silence their opponents abroad, to polish their own image (or their countries’ image) in Western countries and change the narrative about their persistent abuse of human rights. The author claims that these activities have broader implications beyond the region.
9.08.2024
Debunking Myths About Populism in Power
'Populism' and 'power' have an uneasy relationship. Key texts reveal three assumptions about populism's 'fate' in power: first, it becomes mainstream; second, it turns authoritarian; third, it fails / succeeds to implement policies. Giorgos Venizelos argues we must look beyond populism's content or outcomes and turn instead to populism's function of constructing collective identities through discursive / affective performativity.
3.06.2024
Podcasts
Who Will Define the International Order of the 21st Century? – John M. Owen IV on Liberal Democracies in Our Fragile World
In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, John M. Owen IV – author of the new book The Ecology of Nations. American Democracy in a Fragile World Order – explains what he means by co-evolution and the regime-power dilemma; shows how authoritarian rivals, such as China and Russia, have attempted to engineer their ecosystems; discusses the three historical ages of liberalism and what might replace the currently dominant form of open liberalism; and reflects on what the emergence of two rather separate but partly overlapping international ecosystems might imply for the future.
11.12.2023
