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Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
	First edition
Author	Anne Applebaum
Language	English
Subject	Political science
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	2024
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
Pages	224 pp.
ISBN	978-0385549936

Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World is a 2024 non-fiction book written by Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum and published by Doubleday.^[1]^[2] The book examines how Autocratic governments, which do not share a common ideology, collaborate to increase their power and control against the democratic and liberal countries.^[3] It is an expanded version of her article in The Atlantic magazine: "The Bad Guys Are Winning".^[4]^[5]

The book has been recognized as one of the "Books of the Year" by The Economist.^[6]

Summary

The book describes the relationships between Autocratic governments in the 21st century, which are no longer based on shared ideology but "rather by a ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve their personal wealth and power”.^[7] This networking of autocracies, that include Russia, China, Islamic Republic of Iran, Venezuela and others, use the global economic system and personal connections to support each other to maintaining their personal wealth and keeping their peoples oppressed.^[5] The author explores how these autocracies cooperate in several key areas: propaganda and media control, trade in weapons and technologies, and money laundering.

Autocratic governments often support one another while democratic Western countries restrict their media channels. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western nations remove the Russian TV channel Russia Today from their satellites because they claim it broadcast Russian propaganda and "false narratives". In response, a Chinese satellite began to stream the channel and continue to spread pro-Russian propaganda around the world, especially in the developing world.^[5]^[8]

These governments also disseminate fake news to stoke fear of Western countries and portray their leaders as defenders of order and tradition. For example, Russian media reports to other autocratic countries against the LGBTQ movement with fake news like "European governments take children from straight families and give them to gay couples" and present Vladimir Putin as guardian of the traditional family.^[3]^[8] They also use social media to spread propaganda, employing intentional typos in website addresses, known as "typosquatting", (Reuters.cfd instead of Reuters.com, Spiegel.pr not Spiegel.de) to lend false credibility to their messages and manipulate public opinion.^[2]

The cooperation among these regimes extends beyond media control to include trade in weapons and technology, enabling them to undermine sanctions imposed by Western countries: China provides weapons to Venezuela, and Iran supplies arms to Russia.^[8] The networking of autocracies make often results in unexpected collaborations between governments that do not share ideology, religion, or borders. One such example is the Iran–Venezuela relations: Iran provided technical support, food and petrol to Venezuela, in return, Venezuela laundered money to Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon, and provided passports to its officials.^[3]^[5]^[1]

Both knowingly and unknowingly, various organizations within democratic countries also contribute to enrich autocratic governments. Russia and China operatives hire lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and lobbyists in democratic cities like New York and London to help launder their wealth and whitewash their crimes.^[1]^[7]^[8] The autocrats skillfully manipulate the global economic system to serve their interests, while the democratic world, motivated by greed and convenience, often turns a blind eye.^[1]

Applebaum reveals how, under the nose of democratic world, autocratic governments thrive through the creation of an extensive system of mutual assistance and connections between them. She writes, “Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states,” but, she argues, the autocratic states “spread to the democratic world instead".^[1]

To address this concerning phenomenon, Applebaum offers several recommendations: She suggests that opposition groups in autocratic countries should work together, noting that "if the Russian diaspora, the Hong Kong diaspora, the Venezuelan diaspora, and the Iranian diaspora can amplify one another's messages and ideas, than together they can have a larger impact than individual group could have by itself".;^[9] In addition, she recommends that democratic countries adopt the style of association of autocratic governments to overpower them: unite to increase self-production of critical industries, increasing financial market transparency to combat corruption and shell companies and regulating social media to curb the spread of propaganda, fake news, and misinformation.^[5]^[10]

Above all, she calls on the Western world to recognize the shifting global order and take appropriate action. She believes that "the citizens of the United States, and the citizens of the democracies of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, should begin thinking of themselves as linked to one another and to the people who share their values inside autocracies too". She stresses that democratic societies need each other now more than ever, as "their democracy are not safe. nobody's democracy is safe".^[11]

Reception

The book has been recognized as one of the "Books of the Year" by The Economist.^[6] The Washington Post called it as "a valuable book for many reasons".^[8] The Times describes the writing as "an urgent, almost steamrolling prose" and the reading in the book as "breathless".^[5]