POL112H5 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Longwave, Individualism, Decolonization
11 Apr 2016
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Comparing governments of other countries to your own is called comparative politics. Today"s dictators understand that in a globalized world the more brutal forms of intimidation mass arrests, firing squads, and violent crackdowns are best replaced with more subtle forms of coercion. We like to believe that authoritarian regimes are dinosaurs clumsy, stupid, lumbering behemoths, reminiscent of the soviet union and its final days or some insecure south american banana republic. Even as vladimir putin became increasingly authoritarian, he never did violence to the russian constitution; he worked in the seams of russia"s political system, centralizing power through channels that could at least appear to be democratic. It is more difficult to be a dictator today: info technology makes it harder for dictators to censor and manipulate events. Violent crackdowns can be recorded on a smartphone and broadcast around the world: north korea is easily the most closed society in the world today.
