EBP #2

 Propaganda and Protests in Autocracies by Erin Baggott Carter and Bret L. Carter examines the question of whether propaganda reduces the rate of popular protest in autocracies. In order to answer this question, we must first understand what an autocracy is. The Cambridge Dictionary defines an autocracy as “a government by a single person or small group which has unlimited power or authority, or the power or authority of a small group or person.” From this definition, we  can understand that protests are incredibly threatening to an autocracy, where parallel power is non-existent. 

The authors of this article systematically separate different types of propaganda usage. Firstly, that propaganda is likely to be more frequently found in countries where the government has strong control of media. Secondly, other countries may employ propaganda during different times of the year, where there is a heightened level of collective action. This incites a strong desire within the government to manipulate citizens beliefs; propaganda may be a genuine reflection of the country’s state. For example, if a country’s economy is thriving or there is lower levels of unemployment, there will be less pro-regime propaganda and more genuine positive coverage. This strategy tends to lower levels of protests, rather than the government presenting omnipresent levels of propaganda. This article finds that pro-regime propaganda which genuinely reflects the state of society reduces the odds of popular protest the following day by 15%. 

The authors present a theoretical framework about the mechanisms of propaganda and protest. There are three particularly salient mechanisms in which autocratic propaganda alters the feelings of citizens. Firstly, and most obviously, propaganda may alter the public’s perception of the leader in office. In order to do this effectively, autocratic propaganda must intertwine fact with fiction. The article gives the example of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s media covering economic failures within the country, even if those failures are due to external reasons. By utilising this strategy, citizens may become more ignorant to the spreading of misinformation by their government.

Secondly, the authors state that pro-regime propaganda may result in citizens questioning the beliefs of their neighbours. This generates mainstream popular compliance as if individual citizens are not persuaded by pro-regime propaganda, they may lose trust in their neighbours ability to notice the distinction between fact and fiction. This creates a decrease in civil unrest as if a minority of citizens believe that their neighbours are incapable of noticing this distinction, then this can affect mass behaviour. 

Thirdly, pro-regime propaganda can still reduce rates of popular protest even if citizens are not persuaded by the propaganda. This is because the government may be using propaganda to communicate the force in which the regime is willing to undertake in order to retain power. The authors suggest that the government of China utilises propaganda in this manner. Huang (2015) states that, “such propaganda is not meant to ‘brainwash’ people with its specific content about how good the government is, but rather forewarn the society about how strong it is via the act of propaganda itself.” This sensitises the citizens to the capability of their government, making popular protest less likely. This relates to the idea that we have discussed surrounding the main targets of repression by autocratic regimes are minority groups. This intertwines with the notion that propaganda is not solely towards the government itself; but to government agencies, such as law enforcement. An example given in class is police departments in the United States of America, particularly southern states, which have an expansive history of systemic racism. Propaganda, or colloquially, ‘copaganda’, is portrayed through the media to keep a society’s perception of law enforcement as ‘good’, whilst also portraying the idea that they are incredibly powerful and have the ability to act in ways which target outgroups. 

The authors take a statistical approach to analysing and collecting state-run newspapers in order to accurately measure levels of propaganda in countries. The authors identified the most widely distributed state-run newspapers for autocratic countries around the world, then restricted them to six languages in order to gather the best quantitative text results: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The state-run newspapers with the most published articles stem from countries such as Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates. This data either justified or contradicted the previous three hypotheses above on the implications of pro-regime propaganda on popular protests. This data analysis found that pro-regime propaganda may not reduce the occurrence of protest during election cycles, due to many citizens within these regimes having hopes for change and the inspirational messages of activists or oppositions, if the state allows opposition parties to exist. 

The authors do a good job at acknowledging factors which could skew the results. This is particularly due to the fact that their data relies primarily on online archives, and therefore their sample could be favourable to autocracies which have higher internet access. However, this skew is mainly due to the inclusion of three states, Singapore, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates that have unusually high internet penetration rates, which does not majorly change the data. 

The authors conclude that the most successful strategy in which to utilise propaganda is to use it consistently over a sustained and drawn out period of time. The authors state that by doing this, it “creates an alternate reality that, over time, induces its citizens to relinquish their once held convictions.” Propaganda is critical to an autocratic regime’s ultimate survival, and acts as the centrality of information for an autocratic party's agenda. When there is a sustained output of propaganda, an autocratic regime is more likely to survive a wave of violence than a democracy, as we have learnt in this course.