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This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Global Media and Communication and the definitive published version will be available at https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/journal/global-media-and-communication ; Communications are assemblages of infrastructures, materialities and meanings. As such they are integral to the making and intersecting of the material, institutional and discursive undercurrents of neoliberal authoritarian governmentality regimes. However, the existing political communication largely focuses on the discursive dimensions of communications, and disregards how communications partake in the governing of populations through economic, material and institutional practices. By focusing on Turkey's case, here I move beyond this approach and examine the role of communications in the development of neoliberal capital accumulation, authoritarian welfare politics, political repression and the production of popular support. This analysis focuses on information society plans, e-governance and digitisation, liberalisation, de/re-regulation, and the restructuration of ownership and control of communication networks between 2002 and 2016.

The demand for democracy is a pervasive feature of contemporary political discourse. It is a compelling demand, for citizens and elites who rally beneath the banner of "democracy" and for political scientists who study the ways citizens and elites rally beneath banners in order to mobilize, seek, and contest political power. The force of this demand was captured by the cover of our June 2011 issue, which featured a wall in Egypt's Tahrir Square covered with graffiti stating that "Mubarak must go" and calling for "freedom" and "democracy."

In the larger public debate, it is often suggested that neoliberalism has been swept aside by an upsurge of what are commonly referred to as right-wing populist movements, parties, and figures but are, in fact, authoritarian ones. It is the more or less explicit assumption of this narrative—namely, that there is a conflictual and dichotomous relationship between neoliberalism and authoritarianism—which is the focal point of the critical inquiry contained in this paper, thus building on recent scholarly accounts, which also challenge this assumption. The argument proceeds in two broad steps, prefaced by a theoretical-historical conceptualization of neoliberalism. First, an admittedly cursory survey of authoritarian parties and movements is conducted to show that there is ample reference to typical neoliberal ideas and arguments in their party platforms or concrete reform proposals. Secondly, the issue is approached from the converse perspective in order to ascertain the extent to which there are authoritarian potentialities in neoliberal thought. Here, calls for a strong state by some neoliberal thinkers are discussed as well as the link between some of them and the military dictatorship in Chile. Finally, the paper argues that the neoliberal view of politics is—possibly inadvertently but still systematically—drawn toward authoritarian politics and the respective actors because neoliberal thinkers largely lack any alternative option to account for the possibility of neoliberal reform. Neoliberalism and authoritarianism are not intrinsically tied to each other, but even less are they inherently opposed to one another; an amalgam of "authoritarian neoliberalism" thus seems far from impossible and may very well become the dominant shape of neoliberalism to come.

Current scholarship on elections in authoritarian regimes has focused on exploring the relationship between elections & democratization, & it has generally used analytical frameworks & methods imported from the study of genuinely democratic elections to do so. These tendencies have kept scholars from asking a wide range of questions about the micro-level dynamics of authoritarian elections & the systematic differences among them. With these issues in mind, this review examines literature that investigates the purpose of elections in dictatorships; the electoral behavior of voters, candidates, & incumbents in these elections; & the link between elections & democratization. The review ends with a call to redirect the study of authoritarian elections toward uncovering & explaining the important differences among them. Adapted from the source document.

With the publication in 1973 of Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics, Guillermo O'Donnell initiated a new phase in the debate over the relationship between social change and politics in Latin America. In contrast to most of the political development literature of the 1950s and 1960s, O'Donnell argued that social and economic modernization in the context of delayed development is more likely to lead to authoritarianism than democracy. His analysis focused on the emergence of military regimes in Argentina and Brazil in the middle 1960s—regimes that he labeled "bureaucratic-authoritarian" to distinguish them from oligarchical and populist forms of authoritarian rule found in less modernized countries. O'Donnell's suggestion that an "elective affinity" exists between higher levels of modernization and the rise of bureaucratic-authoritarianism in South America anticipated the military takeovers of the 1970s in Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina. The timeliness of his argument, together with its broad theoretical implications, stimulated considerable discussion, which culminated in the recent publication of a volume devoted to the exploration of themes raised by O'Donnell.

The time-tested way to defeat authoritarianism / Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder -- African authoritarianism must be stopped / Phil Wilmot -- Is Nigeria still a democracy? / Sebastian Spio-Garbrah -- Authoritarianism in Venezuela / Zeeshan Aleem -- Turkey is a trendsetter in the slide to authoritarian rule / Barc̦in Yi̇nanc̦ -- The rise of new authoritarianism in the EU / Märt Trasberg -- Vladimir Putin, anti-Americanism, and Russian authoritarianism / Paul Hollander -- The dangerous rise of populist global attacks on human rights values / Kenneth Roth -- The origins of modern authoritarianism / Freedom House -- Authoritarianism comes in waves / David Motadel -- The return of the strongman / Graeme Hamilton -- Is Internet freedom a tool for democracy or authoritarianism? / Elizabeth Stoycheff and Erik C. Nisbet -- Factors that enable totalitarianism / Tyler DeBrauwere -- Far right populism and the will of the people / Dinyar Godrej -- Why voters elect authoritarians / Mike Cummings and Milan Svolik -- The causes of authoritarianism in the former Soviet Republics / Charles H. Fairbanks -- Is authoritarianism really a bad thing? / Deena Stryker -- Strengths and weaknesses of autocratic leadership / Legacee Corporate Services -- Singapore and the limits of authoritarian prosperity / Freedom House -- A boring but tolerable life / Thomas Pepinsky -- Is China's Xi Jiping a "good" authoritarian? / Mark Beeson -- Dictators delight in Trump's victory / Brian Klaas -- China and Singapore are not the models to follow / Mark P. Lagon and Brittany L. Fried -- Egypt's new era of repression / Amr Hamzawy -- The time-tested way to defeat authoritarianism / Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder -- African authoritarianism must be stopped / Phil Wilmot -- Five ways to fight authoritarianism / Aric McBay -- The fight against authoritarianism starts now / Sarah Freeman-Woolpert -- How democracies can fight authoritarian sharp power / Christopher Walker, Shanthi Kalathil, and Jessica Ludwig -- Resisting Trumpism in Europe and the United States / John Shattuck.

This paper uses a new typology of authoritarian regimes to explore the extent to which regime type explains the survival (and breakdown) of non-democratic regimes as well as the impact of different types of authoritarian regimes on democratic development. Our results demonstrate that different types of authoritarian regime face different propensities to develop toward democracy. Hence the nature of the authoritarian regime in question deserves to be added to the list of democracy's essential preconditions. One regime type—the limited multiparty system—stands out as the prime stepping stone to democracy. The fact that this regime type has become the most common form of authoritarianism can be seen as a promising sign for the future.

This paper argues that despite the considerable resilience demonstrated by the Chinese authoritarian regime, its power experiences continuous atrophy. With the weakening of the totalitarian control imposed on Chinese society, the current stability maintenance system has been decreasing in its effectiveness. Meanwhile, contentious activities within the civil society gain momentum, and grow in both frequency and complexity. Movements such as human rights advocacy and political pluralism are traversing down a path towards a multilaterally coalesced resistance of authoritarian authority. The final part of this paper proposes and analyzes three possible trends of the development of social contentions in Chinese civil society. Adapted from the source document.