How dictators fall: Expert reveals vulnerabilities of tyrannical regimes - The Front Page

A huge crowd of soldiers in combat gear stands at attention beneath the reviewing stand at Nuremberg, Germany, listening to a speech by the German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler during the Nazi Party rally of 1936. The Party held a similar rally here every year between 1933 and 1938.

Adolf Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Benito Mussolini. Pol Pot. Saddam Hussein.

Apart from being some of the most infamous dictators in human history, they all have one thing in common.

They all had dramatic, violent, and disgraced downfalls. But, in almost every case, foreign powers played a major role in shaping the post-dictatorship future

How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive, by political scientist Marcel Dirsus delves into the vulnerabilities of authoritarian regimes and explores strategies for their dismantling.

He told The Front Page that in our democracies, there is an idea that these leaders are all powerful and can do whatever they want.

“But, the reality is far from that. One of the big problems that these leaders have is that when they lose power, oftentimes they also lose their freedom or their life.

“When political scientists looked at the statistics for this, they found that over two-thirds of personalised dictators ended up imprisoned, in forced exile, or dead, after losing power,” he said.

Researching the book, Dirsus interviewed everyone from diplomats to dissidents.

“I talked to war criminals, coup plotters, intelligence officials, and one conversation is always gonna stay with me. It was with a coup plotter who originally was a nonviolent activist. He was half American, half Gambian, and he would raise money to weaken the dictatorship back home.

“But, eventually, things at home got so bad because there were just more reports about people being tortured, killed, that he had a decision to make. At what point would he give up the non-violent struggle and be willing to use violence or to support violence in order to bring down this horrendous dictator?” he said.

Smaller countries, like New Zealand, have more influence on the world stage than we might think, Dirsus said.

“These are things like supporting journalists, going ahead with sanctions, supporting independent NGLs. All of these things are good; they’re not necessarily going to lead to the fall of dictators immediately, but they will create the conditions that you need for that moment when crisis arrives.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more about what makes a tyrant and what more often than not leads to their eventual downfall.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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