From Hitler to Stalin, and from Mussolini to Mao, the world’s twentieth-century dictators took to heart Niccolò Machiavelli’s famous dictum that “it is better to be feared than loved.” Yet most modern dictators seem more concerned about maintaining their people’s loyalty not by giving them what they want, but by manipulating them into thinking they already have it. Nobody executes this approach more masterfully than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
OP-ED
Sergey Guriyev: The future of Putin’s information autocracy
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual press conference in Moscow on Dec. 19, 2019.
