This essay looks at the power model Putin has developed domestically, how it is being deployed abroad, how other neo-authoritarian and hybrid regimes are adopting similar tactics, and the sorts of solutions liberal democracies can adopt to deal with these challenges.
About the Author
Peter Pomerantsev, senior fellow at the Legatum Institute Transitions Forum, writes extensively on twenty-first-century propaganda. He is the author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (2014).
After the December 2011 State Duma elections, the Russian opposition and civil society quickly launched large protest rallies in response to electoral fraud.
The same technologies that are making traffic flow faster, cities run better, and ad-targeting more precise are also helping authoritarian governments to crush protests, hunt dissidents, and control their populations.