In a Rethinking European Development and Security (REDS) seminar held on April 9, 2026,  and co-hosted by CDDRL and The Europe Center, Konstantin Sonin, a John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, presented his research on “The Reverse Cargo Cult: Why Authoritarian Governments Lie to Their People,” offering a theoretical explanation for why regimes such as the Soviet Union would knowingly tell citizens visibly false statements. According to Sonin’s research, authoritarian propaganda is much more complex than simple misinformation or manipulation, as it is often designed not to convince people of a single claim, but to shape how they evaluate information more broadly. 

Sonin begins with a personal anecdote, reflecting on his own experience participating in Soviet elections where there was only one candidate on the ballot, despite the process being presented as a meaningful choice. Using this example, he questions why regimes like the Soviet Union invest so heavily in clearly staged elections or exaggerated portrayals of Western life, even when citizens recognize these distortions. From this, he introduces the idea that such actions are not meant to persuade citizens of a specific falsehood, but instead to influence how they interpret all incoming information. Drawing on the metaphor of a “reverse cargo cult,” he suggests that just as some communities misinterpret the source of Western goods, citizens in authoritarian systems may come to believe that institutions in other countries are equally performative or deceptive. In this sense, narratives about foreign countries become an integral tool for reinforcing domestic political stability. 

He further explores how citizens evaluate elections and the decision to replace an incumbent under uncertainty about both competence and trustworthiness. He recognizes that in these regimes, citizens are not entirely naïve and may often recognize when a leader is lying. However, Sonin shows that even obvious lies can be effective. When a domestic leader lies about conditions that citizens already know to be bad, it signals not only that the leader is untrustworthy but also raises the perceived likelihood that foreign leaders are similarly dishonest. As a result, citizens downgrade their expectations of potential replacements, concluding that alternatives may not be any better. This dynamic ultimately reduces the incentive to replace the incumbent. 

As his theory suggests, negative information about conditions abroad, or even skepticism toward foreign success, can benefit authoritarian leaders. For example, Sonin points to Soviet reactions to the American National Exhibition in Moscow, where displays of a typical American home were dismissed by officials as unrealistic or misleading. This kind of framing encouraged citizens to question whether life in the United States was truly better, reinforcing the idea that shortcomings at home were not unique. As a result, domestic failures appear less exceptional, helping explain why authoritarian propaganda frequently emphasizes criticism of other countries and why such narratives often reinforce one another. 

Sonin concludes by emphasizing that lying in this context is not primarily about persuading citizens of a particular false claim, but about shaping their broader beliefs about the reliability of information. By weakening trust in information overall, leaders can make bad conditions at home seem like the safer or more reliable option compared to the uncertainty of change.

On February 12, Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Europe Center, and the Hoover Institution hosted Lucan Way, Distinguished Professor of Democracy at the University of Toronto, for a seminar titled “Economic Dependence and Authoritarianism: Russia in Comparative Perspective.” The talk, part of the REDS (Rethinking European Development and Security) series, examined the structural relationship between state resource concentration and democratic outcomes, using Russia as a central case while situating it within broader comparative patterns.

Way’s core argument centered on a simple but powerful proposition: when economic resources are concentrated in the hands of the state, autocracy becomes more likely; when resources are dispersed outside the state, democracy becomes more feasible. The key mechanism linking economic structure to regime type is the strength — or weakness — of countervailing societal power. Resource concentration generates societal dependence on political leaders. Citizens dependent on public-sector employment or state benefits face high personal costs for political opposition, including loss of income or access to essential services. Similarly, business elites reliant on state licenses, contracts, or regulatory goodwill incur substantial risks if they challenge incumbents. The result is weak opposition, limited activist networks, minimal independent funding, and fragile civil society organizations.

Way situated this framework within three major literatures on authoritarianism. First, underdevelopment (Lipset 1959; Przeworski et al. 2000) remains strongly associated with autocracy: roughly 70 percent of poor countries were autocratic between 2000 and 2021. Second, oil wealth (Ross 2001; Bellin 2004) produces an even starker pattern: about 90 percent of petrostates were authoritarian in the same period. Third, statist or weak private-sector economies (Fish 2005; Greene 2007; Arriola 2013; Rosenfeld 2021) show similar tendencies, with roughly 80 percent of the most statist countries classified as autocratic. Despite their differences — very poor African states, wealthy Middle Eastern petrostates, and middle-income statist regimes — the underlying mechanism is the same: resource concentration fosters weak countervailing power.

Russia exemplifies this structural dynamic. While the 1990s appeared to feature strong countervailing forces, including powerful oligarchs credited with supporting Boris Yeltsin’s reelection, Way argued that these actors were in fact institutionally weak. Russia’s private sector relied heavily on state connections in a system with weak courts and manipulable regulatory frameworks. The imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky after he challenged Vladimir Putin underscored the vulnerability of even the wealthiest economic actors. The broader business community remained largely passive, reflecting structural dependence rather than autonomous strength.

Statism further entrenched authoritarian control. A state-dependent middle class and political parties reliant on Kremlin financing limited the development of robust opposition. In oil-rich systems, public-sector employment and distributive benefits deepen citizens' dependence, while governments remain fiscally insulated from private-sector pressures. In underdeveloped postcolonial contexts, even modestly financed states wield disproportionate leverage over fragile economies, facilitating cooptation and repression.
Preliminary statistical evidence using V-Dem measures of “resource concentration” supports these claims. State ownership or control over key sectors correlates strongly with authoritarianism, high pro-incumbent mobilization, low opposition mobilization, media control, and weak civil society. Way acknowledged complications, including endogeneity: autocrats often increase resource concentration through nationalization or expansion of public employment. Nevertheless, certain structural conditions — such as large oil reserves, extreme underdevelopment, or historically weak private sectors — make concentration more feasible ex ante.

In conclusion, Way emphasized that autocracy is not inevitable in such contexts. However, where countervailing societal power is weak, imposing authoritarian rule becomes far easier. Across diverse regimes, economic dependence constitutes a common mechanism of authoritarian control — whether through business capture of the state or state capture of business.

At a recent REDS seminar co-hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and The Europe Center, Andrew Michta, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Hamilton School, delivered a sobering assessment of European security in an era of renewed great power conflict. Framed around the question “Will deterrence hold?”, Michta’s talk examined the structural weaknesses of Europe’s post–Cold War security order, the evolving threat environment posed by authoritarian powers, and the limits of both U.S. and European military preparedness.

Michta argued that Europe has spent the past three decades on what he termed a “vacation from history” — a period marked by disarmament, strategic complacency, and the belief that economic integration could substitute for hard security. The post-1990 unification of Germany, the enlargement of the European Union, and the decline of territorial defense planning reinforced the assumption that major war on the continent was no longer plausible. This mindset, he contended, left Europe strategically unprepared for Russia’s gradual re-militarization and revisionism, culminating in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

A central theme of the talk was the failure of the European Union to develop a credible, EU-centric security architecture. While EU elites pursued visions of a “United States of Europe,” Michta emphasized that political fragmentation, divergent threat perceptions, and regulatory obstacles have undermined collective defense capacity. Events such as Brexit, the 2015 migration crisis, and internal disagreements over Russia have further eroded cohesion. In Ukraine, these weaknesses have translated into a fragmented and often reactive European response.

Michta placed Europe’s challenges within a broader systemic context, highlighting the emergence of what he described as an “axis of dictatorships” linking Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea across the Eurasian landmass. Russia, he argued, is now fully mobilized for war, while China is expanding its military capabilities at unprecedented speed and scale. These dynamics are producing an “expanding battlefield” stretching from Eastern Europe to the Indo-Pacific, raising the prospect of simultaneous regional conflicts. Referencing warnings by NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Michta noted that a two-theater conflict by 2027 can no longer be dismissed as implausible.

The talk also addressed the constraints facing the United States and NATO. Despite unmatched global reach, U.S. forces have been reshaped by two decades of counterterrorism operations, face recruitment shortfalls, and are constrained by an industrial base ill-suited for protracted large-scale combat operations. European NATO members, with a few notable exceptions such as Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states, lack deployable forces and the industrial capacity needed for sustained deterrence.

In conclusion, Michta outlined a more pragmatic path forward centered on what he called NATO’s “Northeast Corridor” — a coalition of states in Northern, Baltic, and Central Europe that share threat perceptions and possess credible military capabilities. With continued U.S. support, particularly in nuclear deterrence, logistics, and long-range fires, this regional core could serve as the alliance’s new center of gravity. Whether deterrence ultimately holds, Michta suggested, will depend on how quickly Europe can translate recognition of risk into concrete military and political action — and on how the war in Ukraine ultimately ends.