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The Dictator's Survival Guide

A handbook on the strategies autocrats use to survive in office. James Tilley finds out how authoritarians manage to suppress opposition and remain in power.

How do dictators and authoritarians stay in power? James Tilley, a professor of politics at Oxford University, finds out what's in the dictators' survival guide. How do they control ordinary people and stop revolts? How do they stop rivals from taking over? And how do they manipulate apparently democratic procedures like elections - such as the notoriously fraudulent 2004 vote in Ukraine - to secure their rule? This is another chance to hear a programme, originally broadcast in 2018, that has acquired new relevance.

Producer: Bob Howard
Production Coordinators: Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed
Editor: Hugh Levinson

Available now

28 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Mon 26 Feb 201820:30
  • Sun 4 Mar 201821:30
  • Mon 28 Mar 202220:30
  • Sun 3 Apr 202221:30

Podcast