MIT | By some lights, it seems curious how authoritarian leaders can sustain their public support while limiting liberties for citizens. Yes, it can be hard to overthrow an entrenched leader; that does not mean people have to like their ruling autocrats. And yet, many do.
After all, authoritarian China consistently polls better on measures of trust and confidence in government than many democratic countries, including the U.S. And elected leaders from Africa to East Asia and Europe have seen their popularity rise after rolling back civil rights recently. What explains this phenomenon?
“Successful authoritarians do not take public support and the durability of their systems for granted,” says MIT political scientist Lily Tsai, who has spent years studying autocratic regimes. “They know they have to constantly work hard to make sure there is support and voluntary cooperation.”
The specific way many autocrats achieve this, Tsai believes, is by investing heavily in “retributive justice,” the high-profile use of punishment against people who have run afoul of values shared by leaders and their supporters. Such punishments, it seems, signal to the public that its leaders are maintaining a social order based upon core moral values, even as they restrict certain liberties.
“It’s an important strategy for mobilizing public support that unfortunately we don’t always acknowledge,” Tsai says. “Successful authoritarians understand that people need to feel there is a stable social and moral order, arguably before anything else, and they have to consciously and continuously produce it.”
Now Tsai, the Ford Professor of Political Science and chair of the
MIT faculty, has examined this idea at length a new book, “When People
Want Punishment,” published by Cambridge University Press. In it, she
explores how retributive justice functions, and seeks to shift our
understanding of how authoritarians prosper — an especially urgent
question while many have gained traction around the globe. Fist tap Dale.
0 comments:
Post a Comment