Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei GurievMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sergei Guriev’s “Spin Dictators” is an important and eye-opening contribution to the current political discourse. With great detail and a wealth of examples, he proves what previously seemed to me to be more of a plausible assumption, namely that dictators can also be elected "democratically", that in many cases no (brutal) violence is needed to officially rise up the popularity scale, eliminate one's rivals and still maintain good relations with real or supposedly liberal democracies.
Sergei Guriev has thus done a great service to political discourse. Nevertheless, he has not only answered questions in his work. He has also raised new questions, or at least awakened them in me: Aren't these tools used by spin dictators also used in democracies, so that a party-duopoly has no new intruders to fear? In this way, a few incumbent families that have ruled for generations can take turns in exercising power without being effectively disturbed in their game.
Is it not possible to create an inverse democracy in this way, which looks very much like a pure liberal democracy from the textbook, except that here it is not really the people who determine the government, but the alternating governments that form a suitable people. They would certainly have the tools to do so. So, do spin democracies also exist? Careful observation of the strange events on the other side of the Atlantic can certainly give rise to such suspicions.
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