Dictators and sycophantic supporters: new DCU research shines light on the logic of authoritarian rule and origins of personality cults
Every dictator or autocrat relies on the sycophantic support of those around them, to survive politically, to control the population, implement policies, and ensure high voter turnout. However, in a pioneering data and social psychology driven analysis of thousands of political speeches in Putin’s Russia and Stalin’s Soviet Union, Alex Baturo and team have made an interesting, perhaps counterintuitive finding.
Political supporters are not uniformly enthusiastic in their praise of repressive, autocratic rulers. There is in fact, more variation in their public communication. The research suggests there are particular conditions under which supporters will ‘play the sycophant card.’
Those from economically strong regions may be less inclined to ‘overpraise’ autocrats or mimic their rhetoric. Likewise, those with fewer options in the event of regime collapse or who are in more politically precarious positions may well be more sycophantic in public addresses or comments. Putin’s power and control over elites in Russia may seem very solid, yet the degree to which other politicians will publicly praise him, or share his obsessions with Ukraine, is determined by their own circumstances.
Beyond Russia politics, sycophancy is a social phenomenon present in corporate board rooms, university faculties, and among other countries’ elites, even in democracies. The present study focuses on Putin’s Russia, but a similar dynamic was arguably on display at the Republican National Convention earlier this summer.
Dr Baturo is also the editor of Personalism and Personalist Regimes, published by Oxford University Press in June this year.
Key 大发体育在线_大发体育-投注|官网ings
- Data driven, social psychology informed analysis challenges common assumptions that all authoritarian supporters sycophantically praise the ruler equally
- Those in weaker political standing, or less economic resources more likely to ‘overpraise’ or ‘play the sycophant card’, contributing to the development of personality cults
- Drawing on thousands of political speeches from the Soviet union and contemporary Russia, the research is a groundbreaking use of computational text analysis in political science
- The study observes a phenomenon common in everyday professional life, and sheds light on career advancement in other political contexts and corporate environments
Loyalty and rewards
However, the research also shows that more sycophantic officials survive in office longer, and are more likely to receive promotions. The analysis shed light on how dictators select and award their loyalists, what loyalists have to do in order to survive and advance, and how authoritarian politics really works on a daily basis. It also reveals how personality cults may emerge from the bottom up, resulting in a more and more personalised regime as a result.
There is a large body of literature that has examined the logic of such ruler-elite relations, finding that autocrats tend to award their subordinates based on how loyally they are able to secure votes at elections; sometimes economic competence is also important. All of these studies have only focused on material aspects, such as votes or economic growth, of what elites do in their service to the dictator.
However, when most people think of authoritarian politics they visualise something like iconic images of Soviet or Chinese party members praising Stalin or Mao in speech during party congresses. Authoritarian politics is not only about securing votes or other material aspects but also, often more so, about non-material aspects such as sycophantically praising the autocrat in speech—what most people regard as a common, everyday practice under authoritarianism. It is this aspect of authoritarianism that has been overlooked until now.
Pioneering and innovative methods
In the past, making inferences from speech was very difficult in political science, and scholars had to painstakingly make their way through newspaper editorials and draw conclusions. Now that the computational challenges of analysing large quantities of textual data have been overcome, the co-authors were able to apply these tools in a new context to advance our understanding of politics in autocracies, securing publication in one of the world’s top political science journals as a result.
One of the rapidly developing fields in social science relies on the advances in data science to address important questions in politics and policy. While computational tools have been applied successfully in other areas of social and political science, the study of dictatorships has so far by and large neglected them. Dr Baturo and his co-authors address this gap in their research and they intend to further advance our knowledge regarding personality cults, propaganda, and authoritarian legitimation using these techniques in future research.
Dr Baturo and his co-authors intend to further advance our knowledge regarding personality cults, propaganda, and authoritarian legitimation using these techniques. Another recent study showed the conditions under which dictators emphasise their performance as leaders, or patriotic ideals, or resort to intimidation.
The authors
Dr Alexander Baturo is an Associate Professor in the School of Law and Government at DCU. The paper is co-authored with Dr Jakob Tolstrup from the University of Aarhus and Nikita Khokhlov, a DCU PhD student who is to defend his thesis later this autumn. Dr Baturo is also the editor of Personalism and Personalist Regimes, published by Oxford University Press in June this year.
For media enquiries related to this research contact Conor O'Donovan at mediaqueries@dcu.ie