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Constructive Conflict Guide >
The Complex Factors That Make Intractable Conflict So Difficult >
Challenges Posed by Bad-Faith Actors Who Who Are Trying to Profit by Undermining Collaboration and Power-with Democracy >
Types of Bad-Faith Actors
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BI Article
The Divide and Conquer Authoritarian / Plutocratic Threat
An explanation of the sophisticated divide-and-conquer strategies being used by aspiring plutocrats and authoritarians.
BI Article
The Crane Brinton Effect
The Crane Brinton effect explains why revolutionary uprisings against tyrants tend to produce just another tyrant (rather than a more just society).
Related Folders
Effective Checks on Corruption and Individual Power
To be successful, 21st-century democracies need much more effective mechanisms for combating the tendency of power concentrations to lead to even greater (and more corrupt) power concentrations.
Colleague Activities
Inequitable Power-Sharing
The purpose of this document is to help US organizers, bridge-builders, and others understand the key attributes of authoritarian systems, how authoritarians wield power, and ways to counter it.
Colleague Activities
Authoritarianism: How you Know it When You See It
The purpose of this document is to help US organizers, bridge-builders, and others understand the key attributes of authoritarian systems, how authoritarians wield power, and ways to counter it.
News and Opinion
The New Authoritarianism
News and Opinion
History Will Judge the Complicit
Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?
News and Opinion
Yet Another Week of Trump Failing to Be an Actual Authoritarian
A hopeful, but not definitive, argument that Trump is not on the verge of transforming US democracy into an authoritarian regime.
News and Opinion
A Serbian journalist has a warning about American authoritarianism
News and Opinion
Why Intellectuals Support Dictators
For those who thought that the uneducated masses were responsible for authoritarianism, look at the role of intellectual elites.
News and Opinion
10 Ways Trump Is Becoming a Dictator, Election Edition
A pre-election update of a long-running assessment of the degree to which Trump actually threatens the US with authoritarian rule.
News and Opinion
New research explores authoritarian mind-set of Trump's core supporters
News and Opinion
Where Liberal Power Lies
For those worried about right-wing authoritarianism, look at why the right is worried about left-wing authoritarianism.
News and Opinion
America's Next Authoritarian Will Be Much More Competent
Insights into the degree to which Pres. Trump threatened the US with authoritarian rule and the danger someone without his shortcomings could pose.
News and Opinion
Trump's GOP is Increasingly Racist and Authoritarian---and Here to Stay
News and Opinion
The Republican Trumpist Authoritarian Threat Isn't Overhyped
News and Opinion
How Experts Overlooked Left-Wing Authoritarianism
A look at how political biases have distorted psychological research in ways that have underestimated the level of left-wing support for authoritarians.
News and Opinion
Kathleen Stock won't be the last -- A new age of authoritarianism has only just begun
News and Opinion
We Can't Keep Taking Liberal Democracy for Granted
Activists on both the left and the right must stop flirting with authoritarianism.
News and Opinion
A Tale of Two Authoritarians
News and Opinion
The Dictator's New Playbook
Now that Ukraine has our attention, it's time to start looking at the tactics that dictators and aspiring dictators have been using to gain control.
News and Opinion
What's New About the New Authoritarianism?
News and Opinion
America's Pro-Authoritarian Theorists
News and Opinion
Authoritarianism Here?
News and Opinion
Both Left and Right Are Converging on Authoritarianism
A different and thought-provoking argument that hyper-polarization isn't the big problem. Rather it's a symptom of a bigger problem -- illiberalism on both the left and the right.
News and Opinion
Leaders of democracies increasingly echo Putin in authoritarian tilt
News and Opinion
Trump's Authoritarian Playbook
News and Opinion
Laboratories of Authoritarianism
News and Opinion
The Corruption of Lindsey Graham
A lengthy and very detailed analysis of the incremental changes that led to Donald Trump's transformation of the Republican Party and its increasing embrace of authoritarianism.
News and Opinion
How to Know When a Prosecution Is Political
A practical guide for determining when political prosecutions arise from legitimate efforts to equitably enforce the rule of law and when they are disingenuous tactics used to weaken a political rival.
News and Opinion
Christine Brophy: Narcissism Behind Left-Wing Authoritarianism
News and Opinion
I Watched a Democracy Die. I Don't Want to Do It Again.
From Chile, a retrospective and agonizing account of what happens when democracies do, in fact, fail and authoritarians take over.
News and Opinion
All the Little Caesars
A primer on what everybody ought to know about the incendiary, divide-and-conquer politics used by established (and aspiring) authoritarians.
News and Opinion
JD Haltigan: The Emotional Dysregulation Behind Progressive Authoritarianism
An important and controversial argument worth considering: the political left has its own authoritarian streak -- one that is not driven by the grandiose narcissism of Donald Trump, but rather something different -- vulnerable narcissism.
News and Opinion
Countdown to authoritarianism?
News and Opinion
Being an Actual Authoritarian Is Too Much Work for Trump
News and Opinion
Authoritarian Populists Have Six Classic Moves. Trump's Response to COVID-19 Uses Five of Them.