How Modern Autocracy Works

KQED's Forum

When we imagine an autocracy, writes Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum, we tend to conjure a cartoon image: a malevolent dictator at the top who controls the police and army, evil collaborators and a few brave dissidents. But 21st century autocracies are not that. They’re run instead by “sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services… and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda and disinformation.” We talk to Applebaum about how modern autocracies work and how liberal democracies can disrupt them. Her new book is “Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.”

Guest:

Anne Applebaum, author, "Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World"; staff writer, The Atlantic; Pulitzer-prize winning historian; senior fellow, John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute