About a century ago, totalitarian regimes came to power in Europe and Asia, leading to millions of deaths and great sorrow. Fast forward to the past ten years, and, as if they had forgotten the lessons of history, (1) voters in several large countries have elected populist and/or autocratic leaders, and (2) liberal democracies have fallen prey to intimidation from bullies, be it tyrants or terrorists. How did this happen and what can liberal democrats do about it?

Propaganda:

Sergei Stepanovitch Chakhotin (1883-1973) was born in Istanbul, where his father was a Russian diplomat. He studied zoology, oncology, physiology (the latter under Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, famous for his discovery of conditioned reflexes), and organization theory, and was involved in campaigns against the rise of national socialism in Europe. His book Le viol des foules par la propagande politique (the originally version was published in 1939 and subsequently censored, a second augmented edition was published in 1952) contains brilliant insights on conditioned reflexes, individual and crowd psychology, the history and levers of propaganda, and how pacifists and democrats failed to stop the rise of Nazism in Europe.

• According to Chakhotin, human behavior is driven by four basic impulses. Two of them are related to the conservation of the individual (the combative impulse and the nutritive impulse), while the other two are related to the conservation of the species (the sexual impulse and the parental impulse). These impulses manifest themselves, via a system of innate and conditioned reflexes, through reactions going from intuitive (e.g., “fight or flight” reaction to the perception of physical threat) to intellectual, which combine to create the personality. The four impulses can be exacerbated into selfish antisocial behaviors (e.g., despotism, gluttony, debauchery, misanthropy), or on the contrary sublimed into selfless social behaviors (e.g., socialist ideal, religion, love, friendship).
• Some individuals have found ways to manipulate individuals and crowds by activating levers that play on these basic impulses (Chakhotin uses the term “psychological rape”). As the most important one from a biological standpoint (physical danger can lead to immediate death), the combative impulse is the one on which conditioned reflexes are formed the fastest, and thus the quickest to manipulate: e.g., a physical threat combined with the display of a political symbol provokes fear; after only a few repetitions, the mere sight of the political symbol provokes fear and compliance, without the need for threats. In descending order of importance come the nutritive impulse, the sexual impulse, and the parental impulse. The nutritive impulse was famously illustrated by Pavlov’s experiments with dogs. Political or religious manipulators may use several levers at once, e.g. holy war preachers which play on the combative impulse (encouragement, threats), and on the nutritive and sexual impulses (promise of a paradise with abundant food, clothes, and sexual partners).
• 90% of people are vulnerable to such manipulation. Most well-intentioned people who are aware of such manipulation are often paralyzed or clueless about how to fight back, e.g. democrats and pacifists in the 1930s who resigned, refused to resort to counter-propaganda, denounced fascists as aggressive and dangerous (thus counter-productively highlighting their strength and audacity), fell for their bluff, or tried to compromise to “avoid war”.
• Fortunately, the effects of such mass manipulation can be countered by (1) active or defensive propaganda, e.g., by using symbols (Three arrows vs. Swastika), gestures (raised fist vs. Nazi salute), slogans (“Freiheit”, meaning freedom), impressive street demonstrations (with uniforms, flags, etc.), mockery (e.g. caricatures that ridicule the enemy, deformations of its symbols or slogans, e.g. “Heilt Hitler”, meaning “cure Hitler”, instead of “Heil Hitler”), and (2) education: i.e., teach children from an early age that all human beings should be free and equal, that war is a crime, and that everyone can benefit from progress.

Note: An example of efficient counterpropaganda move is the recent greeting of a neo-Nazi parade in Germany (according to the person who posted the video, I could not independently verify this) by circus clown music. This humorous response completely undermined the neo-Nazis’ message. https://twitter.com/Miguels_Space/status/1627751418105893001?s=20

The Dictionary of Political Thought defines “propaganda” as any attempt – however disrespectful of truth, reason and the human intellect – to win acceptance for a cause, system, or state, either by praise of the thing itself, or by vilification of its known and unknown alternatives”. According to the Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, the term was introduced in a religious context in 1622 (to describe a congregation created by Pope Gregory XV to propagate the Catholic faith) and in a political context during the French Revolution (to describe associations to propagate certain opinions or doctrines). The term gained new meanings in the 20^th century with the development of manipulation techniques by totalitarian regimes and of mass communication techniques.

The Encyclopaedia of Propaganda, edited by Robert Cole, lists various propaganda techniques, among which:

• The bandwagon technique, which plays on people’s need for conformity (“everybody else is on the bandwagon and so should you”).
• Card-stacking, which provides misrepresentative information on the alternatives (only the good aspects of the favored proposal are presented, while only the bad aspects of the competing proposal are asserted).
• The glittering generality, which involves describing the supported person or product in words that evoke positive connotations (e.g., “family values”, “new and improved”).
• Name-calling, which involves labeling the competition in words that evoke negative connotations, often through a manipulation of the language (e.g., “tax and spend” and “soft on crime” attached to the term “liberal”). Related concepts include: Labeling, which involves applying a descriptive word or phrase to negatively categorize a person or group, with the potential effect of dehumanizing individuals (e.g., racial slurs); Character assassination, which involves the fabrication or manipulation of information detrimental to an opponent to destroy their reputation (e.g., innuendo, exaggeration, misrepresentation, distortion, damning with faint praise, outright lying with disinformation and smear campaigns); Stereotyping, which involves the attachment of a static, exaggerated and negative form to describe an opponent, usually exaggerating their perceived character, mental qualities, or physical characteristics, to arouse hate, fear, and paranoia (e.g., Jews represented with hooked noses, Japanese represented with buck teeth and slant eyes); Scapegoating, which involves (in an extreme mixture of card-stacking, name calling and big lie), outrageous accusations against some people, who are held responsible for the crimes and failures of others, or for some misfortune brought on by others (e.g. medieval peasants blamed bad harvests on witches, Nazis blamed Jews and communists for Germany’s defeat in WW1).
• Brainwashing, which involved, in the Korean War context, isolating prisoners of war from familiar things and bombarding them with communist slogans, formulas, explanations, and stimuli, to transform their worldview, release them, and turn them into propagandists.
• Transference, which involves the physical pairing of the supported person or product with something already valued by the public (e.g., politician candidates surrounded by their families with a flag in the background, attractive people portrayed as using a product). Related concepts include: The testimonial technique, which involves endorsements by celebrities (whose opinions people value because they have the outer signs of success); The plain folks technique, which involves advocacy by an ordinary, everyday individual.
• The “big lie” technique, which involves stating something outrageous repeatedly, through different people and media, until it becomes part of popular wisdom and is accepted as fact.
• Disinformation, which uses meticulously developed and credible lies that are infiltrated into a rival’s mass media to mislead their government or citizenry about the intentions and abilities of opponents.
• Fear campaigns, in which the emotions of the target audience are moved in a particular direction by playing upon their anxieties (e.g., the NRA appealing to anxiety about rising crime, Germans warning neutral countries they would suffer if they did not display benevolent neutrality during WW2).
• The fifth column technique, which involves the establishment of agents (traitors or emigrants) in a rival society to undercut domestic morale, disrupt the normal flow of political, economic, or social life, or promote public discord and dissent.
• Doublespeak, which involves the deliberate use of obscure or ambiguous language to deceive the listeners as to the real intent of the policy or program.

Propagandists disseminate their message to as wide an audience as possible, through:

• Media such as internet, television, radio, the press, cinema, public oratory, mass meetings, festivals, word of mouth (rumor and whispering campaigns), leaflets, flyers, graffiti, art, music, literature.
• Materials and techniques such as symbols (images, emblems, signs, slogans), myths, oratory techniques (eloquent style of delivery combined with emotive word choice), terrorism and violence.

Terrorism:

According to the Global Terrorism Database, there were 8,438 terrorist attacks in 2020 which led to 22,847 deaths. The country with the highest number of casualties was Afghanistan (44%), followed by Nigeria (9%), the DRC (6%), Ethiopia (6%), Syria (4%), Yemen (4%), and Somalia (4%). Out of the 262 groups which carried attacks, the groups responsible for the most terrorism are Islamic terror organizations (Taliban 8,987 deaths, Boko Haram 1,898, Al-Shabaab 882, Houthi extremists 820, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 727, Allied Democratic Forces 724, Central Africa Province of the Islamic State 572, Fulani extremists 425, and other muslim extremists 562), with the remainder communist groups (New People’s Army 111, Communist Party of India Maoist 102), ethnic and linguistic groups (Tigray Peoples Liberation Front 834, Samri militia 766) and conspiracy theory extremists (1). Note: the figures include perpetrator deaths.

After many of the recent Islamist terror attacks in France, journalists have tended to describe the perpetrators as psychologically unbalanced people (déséquilibrés). Boris Cyrulnik, a French neuropsychiatrist, believes that terrorists should not be depicted as isolated lunatics or monsters, but that they are purposely recruited and manipulated by a minority intent on seizing power, in a manner very similar to that of the totalitarian Nazi regime.

The Management of Savagery, which has become a favored read of ISIL and al-Qaeda cadres, is a book written by an Islamist strategist in 2004, which describes in a very structured manner how Islamist terror movements should go about to seize power. As will be seen below, we are far from the “lone wolf” who suffers from psychological imbalance pictured by newspapers:

• The author describes, using the Afghan war example, how to weaken superpowers gifted with overwhelming centralized military power (weapons, technology, fighters) by (a) threatening the cohesion of society (aim blows toward the economy, which will threaten opulence, raise social iniquities, and ignite political opposition and disunity across the sectors of society), (b) breaking the media halo which portrays these powers as non-coercive and overwhelming, capable of completely controlling any place in the world (confront the military power with exhaustion and remove respect for their armies in orbit states) and (c) reviving the dogma and jihad in the hearts of Muslim masses.
• The author describes three stages through which an Islamic State should be established in a priority group of countries (e.g., Jordan, Maghrib, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Yemen), selected based on the weakness of their regime, their geographical depth, and the presence of local supporters. The three stages are the following: (1) Vexation and empowerment: the main goals are (i) to exhaust the forces of the enemy: destruction of vital economic and strategic targets (oil facilities, tourism infrastructure), campaign of constant violent attacks to weaken security forces, (ii) to attract new youth to the jihadi work: launch of attention-grabbing operations (execution of hostages in a terrifying manner), (iii) to dislodge existing regimes: infiltration of police forces, armies, political parties, newspapers, Islamic groups, petroleum companies, private security companies and sensitive civil institutions, (iv) to prepare troops psychologically and practically for the next stage; (2) Administration of savagery: spreading and preservation of internal security, provision of food and medical treatment, securing the region from invasions, establishing Sharia justice, raising the level of belief and combat efficiency during the training of the youth, establishing a fighting society, spreading science, disseminating spies, uniting the hearts of people by means of money and public observance of rules, deterring hypocrites, repelling enemies, plundering their money, placing them in a constant state of apprehension, and making them desire reconciliation, establishing coalitions, advance managerial groups, (3) Empowerment: areas controlled by jihadists become united through the establishment of a caliphate, ruled by a single leader, which will gain legitimacy by a mixture of persuasion and coercion. The author cites examples of the management of these three stages from Islamic movements but also, interestingly, from non-Islamic movements (such as leftist movements in Central and South America).
• For the remaining countries, the author advocates variations to these stages. With respect to America, the specific goals are as follows: (1) destroy a large part of the respect for America and spread confidence in the souls of Muslims (by forcing America to attack directly), (2) attract new recruits to compensate human casualties (by conducting dazzling operations and creating anger over direct interference in the Islamic world, compounding the previous anger over America’s support for Israel), and (3) expose the weakness of America’s centralized power (by showing that remoteness from the periphery is a major factor contributing to the possible outbreak of chaos and savagery).

The Encyclopedia of Propaganda, in its entry on “terrorism and violence”, shows how terrorist movements use the media to forward their goals.

It argues that “terrorists hijack the media to achieve their ends, which may include trying to overthrow the state or to alter national boundaries. They also resort to violence to demoralize their enemies, to provoke the state to adopt repressive countermeasures, to demonstrate their movement’s strengths, to gain public sympathy for their cause, and to create fear and chaos. For terrorists, television, newspapers, and the other news media are the conduits to their target audiences. Their acts are carefully choreographed to attract media attention, and they try to manipulate the media to tell their stories, publicize their grievances, and air their aspirations. The nature of the terrorist act— its atrocity, its location and the identity of its victims— can serve to enhance the power of the message. Terrorists often use the “confessions” of hostages and interviews with them to amplify their message, and they rely on the plight of the families and relatives of hostages and victims to move their audiences. Sometimes terrorists attempt to win favorable publicity by releasing hostages. The idea behind violent acts is to prove that anyone can at any time become the victim of terrorism and that even the most powerful government is unable to prevent such attacks against its citizens. Terrorists use terror to combat the popularity of institutions and to circumvent superior military and economic strength. Through fear and violence they hope to compel a state to comply with their demands”.

In other words, the leaders behind terrorist groups are experts at mass manipulation.

Populism:

Michel Winock (born in 1937) is a French historian, professor, and publisher, who specializes in the history of political and intellectual movements. He recently authored an article on the history and ideology of the extreme right.

He finds five common themes in their ideology: (1) Hate of the present (illusion that it was better before, nostalgia for a destroyed golden age), (2) Diabolical causality (designation of scapegoats: inside enemies responsible for present-day evils), (3) Call for restoration of authority (emperor, king, chief, father), (4) Conservative revolution against liberal or representative democracy and in favor of autocracy or direct democracy, and (5) Essentialism: idea of a homogeneous society corrupted by openness (trade, neglect of religion, immigration, globalization).

Note: The official campaign clip of French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oilY0Z95Kxs in 2022 is a textbook illustration of the themes highlighted by Winock (and Mudde – see below), especially nostalgia for a destroyed golden age.

Cas Mudde is a Dutch political scientist, specialized in populism and the far right. In his book The Far Right Today, he argues that all far-right ideologies are built around an “us” versus “them” opposition. Contemporary far right candidates tend to campaign on (1) Immigration (existential threat to the nation, the state, or the race, driven by progressives who either hate their own nation or import new voters to compensate for lost electorate), (2) Insecurity (crime is rampant because of immigration and corrupt or weak mainstream politicians, and should be fought by being tough on immigration, law enforcement, and the teaching of discipline, respect, and traditional values), (3) Corruption (political and economic elites steal from the people, while elitist or left-wing academics, artists, and journalists corrupt their minds), and (4) The defense of national concerns in foreign policy (claims to lost territories, supranational organizations seen as a threat to national sovereignty).

But populism is by no means limited to far right parties. In the Dictionary of Political Thought, by the late British political scientist Roger Scruton, the term “populist“ refers to (1) “one who wishes to solve all political problems by appealing to the ‘will of the people’, believing the people to have instincts and reactions which, if properly tapped, will be alone sufficient to provide guidance and authority to the statesman”, or (2) “the behaviour of the politician who appeals at every juncture to popular sentiment, and enlists ignorant opinion to his side, even in matters of the utmost delicacy where the people lack the expertise to make a sound decision”.

According to Mudde, populism can be attached to other ideologies, such as socialism, nationalism, liberalism or agrarianism. He views it as an ideology with three core concepts: the people, the elite, and the general will. “Populists” present themselves as the defenders of the “pure people” (the common people, those left behind, the silent majority, the true rulers, the national community, the natives), ignored or deliberately kept from political, social and economic power by a “corrupt elite” (the establishment, those who hold leading positions within politics, business, the media, and the arts).

Pierre Rosanvallon, in his book Le Siècle du Populisme, notes that the populist political culture rests on five key elements: (1) “the people” as the central figure of democracy, with a radical opposition between “us” and “them”, (2) a direct, and electoralist view of democracy (multiplication of referenda, rejection of unelected institutions) with a focus on spontaneous popular plebiscites instead of debate, (3) the incarnation of the people by the populist leader, (4) a nationalist and protectionist view of the economy, and (5) the conscious mobilization of emotions and passions.

Populists are therefore, in theory at least, opposed to “liberal representative democracy” rather than to “democracy” per se. (*) Though we will see later the very real risks of populist regimes progressively shifting towards authoritarianism.

In his book Populism: A Very Short Introduction, co-authored by Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser, Mudde argues that populist attitudes are (1) widespread, in that many people think that the establishment is dishonest and self-serving, makes corrupt deals, and does not care about the opinions of the majority, and that the people should not delegate its sovereign power to politicians, but (2) latent, in that they require certain catalysts to be activated, both on the demand side (dramatic economic downturns, major corruption scandals, citizens feeling unheard) and on the supply side (focus of grievances against the “corrupt elite”, criticism of the convergence of maintream parties who fail to address key issues, creation of a sense of crisis).

Below are examples of populists rising to power or gaining influence in a fertile context:

• In 1990, Alberto Fujimori, an academic and university president, won the Peruvian presidential election against famous writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Peru was then facing both a serious economic crisis and the rise of a Maoist guerrilla movement (Shining Path). Fujimori campaigned against the political establishment, framing himself as an outsider (non-white, non-European) who wanted to get rid of the corrupt elite, and in favor of a gradual approach to the economic crisis.
• In 1998, Hugo Chavez mobilized popular resentment and won the Venezuelan presidential election with 56% of the vote in the following “perfect storm” context: (1) falling oil prices in the 1980s and 1990s leading to an absence of money and growing public debt, undermining the two-party system dependent on clientelism, (2) enacting of austerity reforms by center-left president Carlos Andrés Pérez, causing major social revolts and a failed coup d’état by lieutenant colonel Chavez (1992), and (3) the ousting of Perez by the Supreme Court after a corruption scandal.
• In the 2010s, following the Great Recession, social democratic governments in Spain (Zapatero) and Greece (Papandreou) enacted austerity reforms, generating frustration among voters who felt betrayed and no longer represented by their party, and contributing to the activation of populist sentiments, initially through social movements (Indignados) and later through populist parties (Podemos, Syriza).

The diffusion and activation of populist attitudes is also helped by “cognitive mobilization” (citizens are better informed, more independent, and no longer accept the dominance of political elites) and changes in the media landscape (newspapers have become independent from political parties, state media have lost market share, social media has the ability to empower urban middle classes, and commercial organizations focus increasingly on issues that sell, such as crime and corruption).

The real danger of populism is that it may lead to what Mudde calls “democratic erosion“, “democratic breakdown” or outright “repressiveness“, and what Rosanvallon calls “democrature” (combination of democracy and dictatorship). After gaining power, populist leaders tend to (1) enact constitutional reforms that undermine the autonomy of institutions protecting fundamental rights (e.g. diminish judiciary independency, jettison the rule of law, weaken minority rights), and enable the lengthening of presidential mandates and reelections, (2) evict opposing civil servants, (3) control the media (pressure on private firms and prohibition of public firms to advertise in opposition media, acquisition of private media groups by businessmen close to power), (4) form alliances with the army, and (5) polarize society by depicting opponents as immoral, corrupt, and infeodated to foreign interests. Examples of these types of measures can be found in the regimes of Fujimori, Chavez, Maduro, Morales, Correa, Orban, Putin, or Erdogan.

Faced with the rise of populist parties, liberal democrats have either tended to ostracize and fight them (exclude any official collaboration with them – “cordon sanitaire”, organize a general strike or a putsch against populists in power, apply judiciary or supranational counterweights to illiberal proposals) or on the contrary to include them in the political system (by forming a coalition government).

Mudde advocates the following responses to limit demand for populism: (1) preventing and fighting corruption (do not deny corruption scandals when they come to light, prosecute and sanction major cases, improve the working conditions of state employees, encourage citizens to report wrongdoings, enhance the oversight and sanction of state agents), (2) showing responsiveness to grievances (develop liberal democratic responses to them), (3) acting honestly (do not claim full credit when things go well well and blame it all on foreign organizations (international institutions) and processes (globalization) when things go bad), (4) explaining policies clearly (be clear and honest about why some policies are wrong or can have unintended consequences or why some restrictions to sovereignty are acceptable or can have benefits), and (5) promoting civic education: socialize citizens into the main values of liberal democracy, warn about the dangers of extremist challengers.

Rosanvallon advocates a more “interactive” democracy to fix the “representation crisis”. This would consist of mechanisms whereby (1) citizens would be consulted and informed more frequently, and would be able to put an issue on the agenda, and (2) governments would have their actions assessed by independent institutes and would need to present results and be held accountable more frequently.

Note: (*) “Democracy” is “government by the people as a whole (from the Greek word demos) rather than by any section, class or interest within it”. In “direct democracy“, “all citizens participate in decision-making, say by voting and accepting a majority verdict”. In “representative democracy“, “the people choose (say by voting) representatives who are then answerable to them, but at the same time directly involved, and usually without further consultation, in the practice of government”. A “liberal democracy” is a particular form of democracy that establishes procedures and institutions to prevent the “tyranny of the majority“, a concept used by John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville to signal the “danger that democracy might degenerate into tyranny if minorities and eccentrics are not protected from oppression by the majority. It is possible for a policy of genocide, for example, to achieve the consent of the majority; without constitutional guarantees – and specifically a law which upholds elementary rights and freedoms – democracy may therefore become the enemy of liberty”. These procedures and institutions include (1) constitutional guarantees of individual rights (e.g. freedom of expression, right to vote, eligibility for public office, protection of minorities), (2) alternative sources of information, and (3) oversight of legislative and executive powers, such as the “rule of law” (“form of government in which no power can be exercised except according to procedures, principles and constraints contained in the law, and in which any citizen can find redress against any other, however powerfully placed, and against the officers of the state itself, for any act which involves a breach of the law”) and the “separation of powers” (theory, implicit in Aristotle, independently expressed by James Harrington and John Locke, and popularized by Montesquieu, advocating the separation of government powers into the “legislature”, which “formulates policy and enacts it as law”, the “executive”, which “carries policy into action” and the “judiciary”, which “applies the law according to rules of procedural justice and resolves disputes”).

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, liberal democrats and more generally those intent on safeguarding freedom should in my opinion:

• Learn about the theories of government and their history.
• Detect the manipulation techniques of propagandists, terrorists, extremists and populists to avoid getting baited or blindsided.
• Tackle legitimate grievances of fellow citizens to avoid resentment.

Sources:

• Le viol des foules par la propagande politique, by Serge Tchakhotine (1952 edition, Gallimard).
• The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought, by Roger Scruton (Third Edition, 2007, Palgrave Macmillan)
• The Encyclopaedia of Propaganda, edited by Robert Cole (2015, Routledge)
• Global Terrorism Database, https://www.start.umd.edu/look-back-2020-trends-global-terrorism-database-gtd
• Management of Savagery, by Abu Bakr Naji (2006 translation by William McCants, with funding by the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University)
• L’extrême droite : avatars et invariants, by Michel Winock (2022/4, Cités).
• The far right today, by Cas Mudde (2019, Polity Press).
• Le Siècle du Populisme, by Pierre Rosanvallon (2020, Editions du Seuil)
• Populism: a very short introduction, by Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser (2017, Oxford University Press).