Modern dictators
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so if modern-day dictators aren’t using firing squads or kidnappings, what are they doing to stay in power?
WILLIAM J. DOBSON: Well, the modern dictator understands that if you are going to try and keep ahold of your people, you have to use new and different techniques, such as — take, for example, Putin. Putin chooses to send tax inspectors or health inspectors to close down or shutter a dissident group. In Venezuela, laws are written broadly and then used like a scalpel to — against any group that is deemed a threat. The Chinese Communist Party frequently refers to democracy and makes sure that all of its top leaders only serve two terms. There are all sorts of different ways in which regimes are finding how to move and navigate through forces that challenge their regimes that make them appear to be other than what they are.