Volume 01 | The Authoritarian Playbook

Content

This volume includes One Grand Strategy and Eight Plays

Featured Grand Strategy

Syncretic Populism

Away from traditional politics towards a more 'common touch'

A Play is an action that can be adapted to different moments and contexts. It may be a strategy, tactic, or tool. The key criteria for its inclusion are its deployment, effectiveness, and relevance in supporting authoritarian agendas.

Play 01 - A New Disruptive Style

Away from traditional politics towards a more 'common touch'

Play 02 - A New Comms Ecosystem

Communications infrastructure for message distribution

Play 03 - Flood the Zone with Shit

It's not about persuasion; it's about disorientation

Play 04 - Strong Ideas, Emotional Appeal

Fueling Passion in the Public Debate

Play 05 - Engaging Storytelling

The narrative formula that sticks

Play 06 - Calculated Compassion

The Authoritarian approach to welfare policies

Play 07 - War on Dissent

Authoritarian offensives on opposition and civil society

Play 08 - Bending Checks and Balances

Authoritarian tactics to undermine democratic institutions

Based on the cases of...

Nayib Bukele
Narendra Modi
Viktor Orbán
Eduardo Bolsonaro
Jair Bolsonaro
Donald Trump
Javier Milei
Rodrigo Duterte
Pablo Marçal
Vladimir Putin
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Law and Justice Party (PiS)
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Yoweri Museveni
Thai Junta
Alexander Lukashenko
Nicolás Maduro
Benjamin Netanyahu
Alternative for Germany (AfD)
Daniel Ortega

License

Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit © 2025 by Democracy-Hub (D-Hub) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Volume 01

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Introduction

How do authoritarians succeed today?