Beyond Propaganda

[Commentary] Neo-authoritarian, “hybrid,” and illiberal democratic regimes in countries such as Venezuela, Turkey, China, Syria, and Russia have not given up on propaganda. They have found completely new ways of pursuing it, many of them employing technologies invented in the democratic world. Why fight the information age and globalization when you can use it?

Today’s autocrats, “illiberal democrats,” and their propagandists have learned how to use phenomena previously associated with democracy -- elections, the Internet, the press, the market -- to undermine freedoms. They have learned how to disrupt the soft power of liberal democracy with a liquid treatment of ideology. And they do so by using Western technology and Western money. While the EU and the U.S. government decry the disinformation, aggression, and war-mongering on Kremlin TV channels, it is worth keeping in mind that these networks are kept afloat by revenue made from Western advertising.

[Peter Pomerantsev is a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute's Transitions Forum]