Autocratic regimes govern by using isolation, fragmentation, and predictability as their tools. For a society to overcome an autocratic regime, it must recognize these conditions and replace the tools of the regime with others that would help democratize society and truly ‘dismantle the master’s house,’ Aia Beraia argues in her contribution to the “Deep Democracy” series.
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We can observe the effects of autocratization on societies that are experiencing it. These consequences are evident at the individual and group levels. From the perspective of autocratic leaders, these tendencies are tools for managing society and consolidating power.
Audre Lorde famously wrote that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” So, the tools of autocrats are not useful for us, who support and work for democracy. The analysis of these effects/tools of autocratic leadership can help us identify what we should change in order to make our position stronger.
As a citizen of Georgia, a country that has experienced democratic backsliding and accelerated autocratization over the past three to four years, and as someone who now lives in exile due to this very reason, I can share my observations on the consequences of autocratization in Georgia. I identify three main conditions: (a) isolation of individuals, (b) fragmentation of society, and (c) predictability. In the article, I will explain what each of these conditions mean and describe the ways that they are being realized. As these results or effects of autocracy can also be understood as its governance tools, I argue that for overcoming the autocratic regime, it is a necessary condition for a society to replace them.
Autocratic isolation
First, autocratic regimes tend to isolate individuals. Each person is expected to focus only on their own concerns, ‘do their job,’ and not be interested in anything outside their narrow private sphere. While this sounds similar to the Western individualism which is often understood and criticized as a part of neoliberal ideology, I believe that autocratic isolation is different and even harsher than neoliberal individualism. This is because in the Western tradition, the ‘private sphere’ is quite well-defined and it usually includes family, religion, and the interests that the individual chooses for herself/himself.
However, in the autocratic regimes that feed off the extremist ideologies and base their power on expansive totalitarian structures, the ‘private sphere’ is also actually non-existent. Thus, the regime tells the person that they should ‘do their job’ and ‘be interested only in what directly concerns them,’ seemingly allowing them a small portion of freedom and safety in the private sphere, but in reality these directives mean that the person should not care even about their own family and children, their own spiritual condition and health condition, and is not allowed to have any interests if it is not explicitly validated by the regime.
In these circumstances, isolation requires that a person not be active in the public sphere or interfere in politics. In this case, ‘politics’ is devoid of its democratic meaning and understood as obedience to a single strong leader and the institutions that create their power through fear and violence. Thus, it is important that they sacrifice themselves completely to serve the regime. Ultimately, the conclusion is that an individual’s well-being or even life is not important at all. The logic of autocracy demands that the only important thing is the regime and the power it consolidates through fear and isolation.
Fostering fragmentation
The isolation is accompanied by the fragmentation of society. Society is fragmented and divided into various social bubbles, such as interest groups that adapt to the ‘every man for himself’ agenda proposed by the regime. The approaches of the social bubbles mirror those adopted by the individuals in the regime: these groups do not primarily view themselves as a part of a greater whole which is ruled through common moral and political norms – a society or a nation which has a common constitutional order.
Instead they see themselves mainly as interest groups who are to act and bargain collectively, but only in accordance with their own narrow interests. This means that they are not concerned with what happens with other groups unless it intersects with their own interests and/or they can somehow profit from being involved. This kind of societal fragmentation and absence of a common horizon is built on bare selfishness and lack of empathy for fellow human beings, and consequently, on disregard for common political and democratic life.
Ensuring predictability
Isolation and societal fragmentation work to ensure predictability. By this term I mean that if the tools of autocracy work as they are supposed to and if individuals and interest groups act according to the rules of the regime, it becomes very easy to predict what they will do in each situation. In autocratic regimes there is no place for spontaneity, for novelty and action. The society that corresponds to the autocratic regime, is a society where nothing unexpected is supposed to happen.
In short, this society is the complete opposite of the democratic living conditions defined by Hannah Arendt in “The Human Condition.” Nothing new and unexpected ever happens; action and initiatives are rejected and persecuted on the systemic level; power is not based in plurality and public life; the public space is shrunk or rejected altogether; and democratic deliberation is replaced by ‘politics’ of a single leader (dictator) who rules through fear and violence.
When everything is predictable and nothing unexpected happens, autocratic leaders can easily maintain control and their positions of power. Thus, predictability is a comfortable condition for ruthless autocratic leaders who are interested in consolidating their power.
In summary, autocratic regimes govern by using isolation, fragmentation, and predictability as their tools. For a society to overcome an autocratic regime, it must recognize these conditions and replace the tools of the regime with others that would help democratize society and truly ‘dismantle the master’s house.’