How Dictatorships Work

That’s the title of a book by Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica Franz (Cambridge University Press, 2018).  In a review of the book in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs Anna Grzymala-Busse explain how things work.  I will quote a paragraph.  You draw your own conclusions.

...today’s would-be dictators do not rely simply on censorship, repression, and patronage.  Instead, they follow a course similar to those charted by democratically elected strongman in countries such as Hungary and Turkey:  go after the courts, intimidate the press, hamper civil society, and use parliamentary majorities to push through new laws and constitutions.  If one squints, things look normal:  elections take place, people can travel in and out of the country, the cafés are full, and the secret police’s dungeons are (nearly) empty.  But underneath the surface, checks and balances that had once prevented dictatorship are falling away.