Authoritarian Regimes Learn from Each Other – In Conversation with Mikal Hem

In our new podcast, Mikal Hem discusses what modern dictators and autocrats seem to have learned from their predecessors, reflects on what might drive voters toward leaders with autocratic tendencies, considers what democratic societies can learn from the survival strategies of dictators, and contemplates how the resilience of free media could be strengthened in autocracies.

The conversation was recorded on September 19, at the Budapest Forum for Building Sustainable Democracies.

Mikal Hem has worked as a journalist and political commentator for the Norwegian newspapers Dagbladet and Verdens Gang, as well as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and the weekly news magazine Ny Tid. He has traveled extensively around the world and spent a good deal of time in Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. For a period of his childhood, he lived with his family in Zimbabwe, under the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. His first book, Perhaps I Can Be Dictator, is a satirical career guide for aspiring autocrats. He is also the author of How to Be a Dictator: An Irreverent Guide.