Sergei Guriev
Says More…
This week in Say More, PS talks with Sergei Guriev, Provost and Professor of Economics at Sciences Po and co-author (with Daniel Treisman) of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century.
Project Syndicate: Last June, you called for an immediate price cap on Russian energy imports. Six months later, the G7 imposed one. But some – including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – say it is too little too late. Do you agree? How big a toll are Western sanctions targeting Russia’s energy revenues taking?
Sergei Guriev: I still believe that the oil-price cap is the right instrument, and was glad to see it implemented, though of course I would have preferred to see it in place sooner.
On the third day of the war, the West sanctioned Russia’s central bank, freezing a reported $300 billion in reserves. But the delay in capping oil prices enabled Russia to replenish its war chest. Its current-account surplus for 2022 was nearly $230 billion, almost twice as high as in 2021. We should remember that every billion petrodollars in Russia’s hands is a billion dollars’ worth of munitions – including Iranian drones – to be used to kill Ukrainians.
Still, late is better than never – especially given the difficulty of implementing this unprecedented measure. One can only imagine the Herculean effort it took to coordinate the move among G7 and European policymakers, and to convince the rest of the world to go along with the cap. And the measure has dealt a blow to Russia’s budget: the December 2022 fiscal deficit was about 2.5% of annual GDP.
PS: For 20 years, you point out, Russian President Vladimir Putin was a quintessential example of the “new breed” of autocrat you and Daniel Treisman discuss in your book Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century – rulers who “maintain control by distorting information and simulating democratic procedures.” But with the invasion of Ukraine, you argue, Putin has reverted from modern “spin dictator” to classic “fear dictator,” and the “life expectancy” of his regime has “abruptly fallen.” What drove this shift from manipulation to violence, and how tenuous is Putin’s grip on power today?
SG: The 2023 edition of Spin Doctors has a new preface that explores precisely this change.
Like other spin dictators, Putin was struggling to control a population that continued to develop. With the rise of a better-educated middle class came more criticism of Putin’s corrupt regime, which had proved unable to generate sufficient income growth. The proliferation of social media compounded the challenge, not least because the opposition – especially Alexei Navalny, now imprisoned at Putin’s behest – used it so skillfully. As Treisman and I put it in the new preface, “Spin takes skill to manage,” and Putin’s team seemed to lack it.
In 2014 – the last time this “modernization cocktail” had seemed to be posing a threat to the Russian regime – Putin launched an assault on eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea. And he was rewarded handsomely: his approval rating soared to about 90%. But the modernization cocktail continued to have its effect, and by May 2020, Putin’s approval rating had sunk to 59%.
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So, in February 2022, Putin attempted to replicate his 2014 success in Crimea. He assumed that Russia would secure another quick victory, but it turns out that he overestimated his own military’s capabilities, and underestimated both Ukraine’s will to resist and the West’s ability to unite. As Treisman and I have both shown, dictators are prone to such errors in judgment, because they lack critical feedback.
When Putin realized his mistake, he decided to abandon the spin-dictator model completely, in favor of the twentieth-century model based on fear, comprehensive censorship, and crude repression. Russia is not the first country to follow this trajectory. Venezuela, for example, shifted from spin dictatorship under the charismatic Hugo Chávez to fear dictatorship under the far less magnetic Nicolás Maduro.
This reversal is a sign of weakness. Putin is aware of his declining popularity; terror is his only hope for political – and probably physical – survival. But it is impossible to predict how long this approach will enable him to remain in power, not least because it will depend significantly on what happens in Ukraine. A Ukrainian victory will undoubtedly hasten his regime’s demise.
PS: You have written that Russia’s likely “eventual defeat” in Ukraine and China’s growing economic travails have “strengthened the argument that liberal democracies with market economies are better than the alternatives.” But you point out in your book that citizens in “most imperfect democracies” are just as skeptical of the “integrity of their country’s elections” as those in spin dictatorships. What are the consequences of this skepticism?
SG: As we note in our book, 46% of citizens in the average democracy – and a mere 39% in the average imperfect democracy – express confidence in the honesty of elections, compared to 36% in the average fear dictatorship. That is not a big difference. This is bad for both the democracy experiencing it and those living under spin dictatorships.
In a recent survey, Elias Papaioannou and I examine the recent decline in trust in institutions and “elites,” and the rise of populism. When populists win elections, both economic performance and the quality of political institutions tend to suffer. This can bolster the positions of spin dictators elsewhere, as it convinces their citizens that every regime suffers from the same weaknesses. “We may not be perfect,” spin dictators tell their citizens, “but nor is the alternative.”
Interestingly, in order to stay in power, the underperforming populists may try to turn their countries into spin dictatorships. They remove political checks and balances and manipulate public narratives, in order to convince the voters that they are competent – and that the alternative would be worse. Some of them, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, succeed; others, such as former US President Donald Trump and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, fail.
BY THE WAY . . .
PS: While most of today’s authoritarians are spin dictators, you classify Chinese President Xi Jinping differently: as a “master of high-tech repression” who “used informational tools not to replace terror but to better target it.” But China’s regime has long depended on rapid economic growth and rising incomes as a substitute for repression. What, then, do China’s current economic struggles mean for Xi’s dictatorship? How widespread could targeted repression become?
SG: In 2022, Xi completed China’s transformation from a party-based regime into a personalistic one. This does not bode well for China’s economy, given the aforementioned propensity of dictators to make policy mistakes. In this sense, Xi’s zero-COVID policy – which suppressed economic growth, but did not spare China from an eventual surge in COVID cases – may be a mere taste of what is to come. This might generate popular frustration, as the zero-COVID policy did. But, because China’s population remains relatively poor and uneducated, the effect of the modernization cocktail on China remains weak. High-tech, targeted repression is not going anywhere.
PS: You cite Singapore as a model of a successful “spin dictatorship” in an affluent society. In fact, Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, helped to write the spin dictator’s playbook. What are some of the “endlessly inventive” tactics that made Singapore a trailblazer?
SG: Singapore remains a source of envy for other spin dictators. Lee was unique among them in that he managed to eliminate corruption and create a dynamic and appealing business climate. Economic prosperity has meant that Singapore’s regime can silence dissenting voices through cooptation, rather than overt repression.
For example, defamation lawsuits have been used to silence journalists and opposition politicians. In Singapore, bankruptcy renders candidates ineligible for parliament, and financial penalties for defamation can be large. Singapore’s spin dictatorship thus benefits from self-censorship, including in academia. According to the Academic Freedom Index, published by the University of Gothenburg and FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Singapore ranks in the bottom third globally.
PS: You argue that dealing with modern dictators requires democracies to pursue “adversarial engagement.” What are the pillars of such an approach, and what are its biggest potential pitfalls?
SG: The life of a spin dictator is not easy. In order to stay in power, they must walk a tightrope: improved economic performance increases their popularity, but it also both requires and produces larger numbers of more educated workers – precisely the kinds of people who are more likely to demand change.
Outsiders should engage with these groups, helping them to become more informed and to share their knowledge with others. This can erode the foundations of modern autocracies. Vĕra Jourová, the European Commission's vice-president in charge of values and transparency, understands this: she has proposed a “Radio Free Russia,” which would help independent Russian media evade the Kremlin’s censors as they disseminate content in their country. Other examples include the efforts of the European Endowment for Democracy and various types of student exchange programs.
At the same time, Western democracies, in particular, should adopt a more adversarial approach to spin dictators and their agents. This means recognizing these regimes for what they are – dictatorships – and standing up to them, not least by countering their efforts to undermine Western political institutions. It is not always easy to distinguish between legitimate business connections and people-to-people democracy, on one hand, and the work of dictators’ agents of influence, on the other, but that is not a reason not to try.
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