Imagocracy

Imagocracy (from the Spanish imagocracia) is a form of governance where censorship and propaganda—particularly through media manipulation—rather than violent coercion, influence public opinion to maintain power. In an imagocracy, primarily observed in so-called informational autocracies or spin dictatorships, the focus is on propaganda techniques such as spin, disinformation, and maintaining psychological control by instilling fear of the 'Other.'

An informational autocracy does not use violence or direct repression on its political opponents. It also creates its own institutions that mimic democratic institutions. The final characteristic of these regimes is that they have little support with the educated elite, but have wide support among the less-educated masses.

Etymology

The term imagocracy was likely first coined in Spanish (as imagocracia) by Peruvian politician Manuel Dammert in 2001 to describe Alberto Fujimori's style of governance: A dictatorship that constructs and dominates the images of social life to perpetuate the hidden power of a corrupt mafia that keeps sterilized the vacuous institutions of representative democracy ... its source of power lies in the domination of the image, whose representation alienates individuals. This social relation, converted into everyday routine and instituted as the vortex of social reproduction is the foundation of its existence as a dictatorship and the engine that calls for its perpetuation.The informational autocracy concept was proposed by Russian economist Sergey Guriyev and British-American political scientist Daniel Treisman in a 2020 paper (later as spin dictatorship in their 2022 book of the same name):Dictators survive not by means of force or ideology but because they convince the public—rightly or wrongly—that they are competent. Citizens do not observe the leader's type but infer it from signals in their living standards, state propaganda, and messages sent by an informed elite via independent media. If citizens conclude that the leader is incompetent, they overthrow him. The dictator can invest in making convincing state propaganda, censoring independent media, co-opting the elite, or equipping police to repress attempted uprisings—but he must finance such spending at the expense of the public's consumption.