Ep67. Dictators’ Disordering Quest for Internal Security

Disorder

From Putin to Qadhafi, from Mohammed bin Salman to Trump… our current era of Enduring Disorder is filled with many Tyrants and Tyrant-wannabes. But why do Tyrants tend to seek Disorder rather than Order? The answer appears to lie in Tyrants’ Endless Quest for Regime Security. Dictators have a marked predilection to put their own desire to cling to power in the short-and medium-term above all other considerations – even if that means deliberately making their countries’ economies and militaries inefficient or willfully spreading Disorder around the globe.

To discuss the deep connections between Tyranny and Disorder, we are joined by Marcel Dirsus, Jason’s old Oxford chum, former Libya-Analysis LLC contractor, and author of ‘How Tyrants Fall: And How Nations Survive’. Marcel is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University and a member of the Standing Expert Committee on Terrorism and Interior Security at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Jason and Marcel dig into the psychology of tyrannical leaders and the structural factors that push tyrants to behave as they do. They explore the concept of the ‘selectorate’ — i.e. who really matters in a given society to keep the ruler in power. They explain how tyrannies have a much smaller and more elite ‘selectorate’ than democracies… this explains why pleasing these very few elites in the immediate term is the key variable required to keep dictators in power… and since those few pillars of regime support might flip at any moment, tyranny is actually an incredibly brittle form of government… and can actually collapse at any moment if its support pillars are removed

In the Ordering the Disorder section, Marcel and Jason urge democratic nations to realize the true extent of weakness prevalent in most dictatorships and target tyrants’ henchmen to help create a more Ordered globe.

Twitter: @DisorderShow

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Producer: George McDonagh

Exec Producer: Neil Fearn

Show Notes Links

What is the Selectorate and what are the implications of ‘Selectorate Theory’ on how we understand international politics? oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-293

Get Marcel’s book at https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/marcel-dirsus/how-tyrants-fall/9781399809481/

But if you want to actually learn about Libya rather than simply reading some kooky stories that Marcel includes about Qadhafi, get Jason’s book: https://globalenduringdisorder.com/

Read more about Marcel at https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/07/17/taking-on-the-global-brotherhood-of-despots

Visit his website https://www.marceldirsus.com/

Visit his substack https://thehundred.substack.com/

And for the reference to Nadav Safran’s ‘Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest for Security’: https://www.amazon.com/Saudi-Arabia-Ceaseless-Quest-Security/dp/0674789857

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