BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians give the authorities wide discretion in applying regimes with significantly different economic systems, them to regime opponents. Such measures are official creeds, and sources of political legitimacy. typically paired with a court system that uses law merely to justify political instructions from the ex- A loose-knit league of authoritarians works to protect ecutive branch, making a mockery of due process mutual interests at the United Nations and other inter- and international conceptions of the rule of law. national forums, subverting global human rights stan- dards and blocking precedent-setting actions against 4. History revised: A number of countries have un- fellow despots. With the formation of the Shanghai dertaken a refashioning of history to buttress the Cooperation Organization, Russia, China, and a number legitimacy and aims of the current government. of Central Asian governments have come together to Historians and journalists are forbidden to cross discuss common regime-security strategies.> certain redlines set by the authorities. In China, the state has prevented the publication of full, More disturbingly, modern authoritarians collaborate accurate, or critical accounts of the Great Leap to prop up some of the world’s most reprehensible Forward, the Cultural Revolution, or the Mao Ze- regimes, apparently reasoning that the toppling of dong era in general. In Russia, Joseph Stalin has one dictator thins the herd, inspires imitation, and been rehabilitated. He is now officially portrayed endangers them all. This is most visible in Syria, where as a strong if mildly flawed leader rather than as Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela at various times the man responsible for the deaths of millions of have offered diplomatic support, loans, fuel, or direct his own people. In Turkey, Erdogan has decreed military aid to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. that high school students shoul