Uppsala Forum Guest Lecture: Authoritarian Snapback: How Dictatorships Tame the Spread of Liberal Ideas

We are witnessing an authoritarian backlash to liberal ideas and norms. This caught some observers off guard because they assumed a high degree of inherent appeal to liberal ideas and institutions. They assumed that socialization stemming from the heyday of post-Cold War liberalism in the 1990s would take on a life of its own and overcome institutional constraints. However, the shaky foundations of liberal soft power have been exposed. This enables authoritarian states to absorb the advance of liberal ideas more effectively or even transform them into enablers of authoritarianism. Presenting both completed and in-progress research, this talk will illuminate the “authoritarian snapback” of non-democratic states advancing their preferred norms, images, and ideas into the global public sphere. It will draw on a range of data, including interviews, public relations documents, episodes of repression and censorship, and authoritarian state propaganda. It is hoped that the findings are useful to academic researchers and those interested in policy or societal responses to the authoritarian snapback.

Alexander Dukalskis is Associate in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. His Research concerns authoritarian states, transitional justice, Asian Politics and international human rights.