Power Through Fear: Authoritarian Regimes, Repression, and the Economy

Throughout history and into the modern day, many regimes have built their authority not on the freely given consent of the governed, but on fear, repression, and the systematic control of freedoms. Some rely on strong ideologies, others simply on the logic of clinging to power. Whether it is Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, or today’s regimes in North Korea, Iran, Russia, or Egypt, terror remains a central tool of political engineering.

The Pillars of Terror: Control, Censorship, and Repression

These regimes share a common three-pronged strategy:

1. Brutal Repression: Arbitrary arrests, disappearances, torture, executions. The state is omnipresent and unpredictable. Fear is sustained through exemplary punishment.

2. Information Control: Freedom of the press, expression, and the internet is severely restricted. The state becomes the sole narrator of truth. China and North Korea are extreme examples of this.

3. Disabling Civil Society: Unions, NGOs, universities, even religious communities are either co-opted or silenced. Social fabric is rendered harmless.

The legitimacy of such regimes does not stem from a social contract, but from a permanent state of surveillance. Ideology—whether religious (Iran), nationalist (Russia), communist (China, North Korea), or monarchist (Saudi Arabia)—often serves to justify this domination, but it is not essential. Egypt under Sisi operates under a vague ideology of "order and stability," without a clear doctrine.

How Long Do Control-Based Regimes Last?

Historically, fear-based regimes have shown surprising resilience, but also deep structural fragility.

They are resilient because fear crushes opposition. Stalinism lasted nearly 30 years. The Iranian theocracy has now survived over 45. North Korea’s Kim dynasty has ruled since 1948. Fear suppresses dissent before it takes root.

But this stability is illusory. These regimes are fragile because they cannot adapt without losing control. Upon the leader’s death or under external pressure (economic or military), the system can collapse rapidly. The USSR crumbled in months. Ceaușescu’s regime in Romania fell in days. Venezuela, despite its natural wealth, is undergoing a silent collapse.

Can an Economy Function Under Terror?

This is one of the greatest contradictions of authoritarian regimes. Total control may neutralize politics, but it chokes the economy. Growth requires creativity, trust, open exchange—all of which authoritarianism stifles.

Two cases emerge:

1. Regimes With Natural Resource Rents (oil, gas, minerals)

• Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Egypt: these countries rely on oil or gas revenues to maintain social order. This gives them economic breathing room: they can buy social peace, subsidize essentials, and fund a costly repressive apparatus.

• But this rent is vulnerable: to sanctions (Russia, Iran, Venezuela), price fluctuations, and the global energy transition.

2. Regimes Without Natural Rents

• China: a unique case. It combines authoritarian control with controlled capitalism. It has leveraged disciplined labor, massive investment, and strategic planning. But growing ideological rigidity (under Xi Jinping) is now stifling innovation and scaring off foreign investors. China's model remains dependent on internal stability.

• North Korea: a militarized subsistence economy, nearly autarkic, kept afloat by China. It survives, but does not thrive.

• Myanmar: since the 2021 coup, its economy has collapsed; foreign investment has fled, and sanctions are mounting. Terror is not a development strategy.

A New Exception: Democracy Undermined by Fear – The Trump Case

A striking development in recent history is the rise of authoritarian tendencies within a well-established democratic system—as seen in the United States under Donald Trump.

During his presidency (2017–2021), and even more so in his post-presidency rhetoric, Trump weaponized fear, not through classic state repression, but through:

• The constant vilification of opponents, often labeled as “enemies of the people”,

• Media intimidation, branding mainstream journalism as “fake news”,

• Massive use of disinformation, especially around electoral integrity,

• Legitimization of political violence, as seen on January 6, 2021,

• A populist and messianic narrative, positioning himself as a singular savior over democratic institutions.

This is not formal dictatorship, but a form of soft authoritarianism, eroding democratic norms from within. It shows that even mature democracies are not immune to authoritarian drift—especially when fear is channeled through electoral legitimacy, social media, and culture wars.

In this context, fear is no longer imposed by a surveillance state, but curated in the public sphere, through media ecosystems, judicial pressure, and identity-based division.

This raises a critical contemporary question: Can democracy be dismantled without ever suspending the Constitution—simply by manipulating fear, the crowd, and institutions from within?

Conclusion: Fear Is a Double-Edged Sword

Fear-based regimes can endure. The absence of freedom does not necessarily mean a lack of short-term stability. But that stability is rigid, artificial, and dependent on a fragile balance: resource rents, the leader’s charisma, total control. It prevents adaptation, reform, and innovation.

Without rents, repression alone cannot sustain an economy. With rents, growth is often just a surface illusion, incapable of generating lasting human development. In the long run, regimes of terror are doomed to suffocation or revolution. The only uncertainty is when—because fear also paralyzes the imagination of what comes next.