Description:
Using North Korea, Burma/Myanmar and China as case studies, this book explains how the authoritarian public sphere shapes political discourse in each context and examines three domains of subversion of ruling ideologies: the shadow markets of North Korea, networks of independent journalists in Burma/Myanmar, and the online sphere in China.
Review Quotes:
"A timely and important contribution to our understanding of how authoritarian regimes interact with and shape public opinion, The Authoritarian Public Sphere is of interest not only to scholars, but to anyone concerned with the persistence of autocracy in our times."
Charles Armstrong, Columbia University, USA
"Subversive ideas can destabilize nondemocratic regimes. For this reason, all students of autocracies need to understand how the authoritarian public sphere is managed and how anti-regime ideas can still circulate despite strict controls. By analyzing the operation of the authoritarian public sphere in North Korea, Myanmar, and China, Alexander Dukalskis' important new book provides valuable insight on the resilience of nondemocratic regimes in Asia and contributes to broader debates in the study of authoritarianism."
Martin Dimitrov, Tulane University, USA
"If autocrats, all things being equal, dig their own graves by repressing public dissent, all things are rarely equal. Alex Dukalskis presents intriguing evidence of the painstaking efforts made by Asia's most long-standing authoritarian elites to legitimate their rule, as well as of the open and hidden contestations about these claims. Doing so not for isolated cases, but in a comparative perspective, is something many have called for but few have done so far."
Heike Holbig, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany