Tuesday, July 17, 2012

POLITICS - Today's Dictators

"How to Be a Modern-Day Dictator" PBS Newshour 7/16/2012

aka "How NOT to Be Bashar al-Assad"

Excerpt

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour): 2011 brought the year of the protester. Demonstrations rocked Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Yet, despite this wave of pro-democracy movements, the number of free countries declined for the sixth year in a row. That's according to the Freedom House Research institute.

One reason for that is authoritarian regimes are learning to manipulate political system without using brute force for suppression. A new book by William J. Dobson, "The Dictator's Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy," tackles that subject.

For two years, Dobson traveled the world to examine regimes that managed to rule with a velvet glove, in spite of their iron-fisted policies.

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