Word: authoritarianism
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...thesis that mankind is entering a state of grace and risking terminal boredom. To cope with the awkward fact that the red star still flies over the head of 1.2 billion Chinese, he argues that the Beijing regime no longer qualifies as totalitarian; it "has become just another Asian authoritarian state." This distinction would not impress the victims of Tiananmen...
Tengiz Kitovani, a member of the country's self-proclaimed new Military Council and commander of the rebel National Guard units that helped topple Gamsakhurdia, triumphantly announced, "A new democratic Georgia has been born." But has it? The men who took over are just as strongly nationalistic and authoritarian as Gamsakhurdia, leaving it unclear what political changes they might make. Nor was it known whether the new leadership would move to join the Commonwealth of Independent States that groups together 11 other former Soviet republics. For now, Georgia seems to be playing a perilous lone hand...
...haunted by his own past persecution by the KGB and by the need to settle old scores to be a truly democratic leader. Obsessed with conspiracies involving "agents of the Kremlin," the President closed down liberal newspapers and barred critics from television. During a wave of protest against his authoritarian rule last autumn, police loyal to him fired on demonstrators, and he jailed opposition leaders. He was intent on extending his power into the provinces by appointing presidential prefects, but he showed no interest in radical economic reforms. Georgia became isolated from the other republics, especially Russia, the region...
...would actually lead such a coup does not seem clear in anybody's mind: just an inchoate, presumably reactionary and authoritarian group referred to ominously as "they." Explained a driver: "There will be bread riots, and that will lead to a coup. And when the coup takes place, that will lead to civil war." But the real specter is chaos. Many of St. Petersburg's citizens fear that social and political instability caused by shortages will bring bloodshed. "When you see their faces," said a member of the city council with a sigh, "they are very tense, but that...
These hatreds are harnessed by a variety of movements, many of them grouped under an umbrella organization called Pamyat, which preaches a sacred nationalism looking toward an authoritarian Russia purged of all foreign influences. The leader of one such group, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, though widely regarded as a clown, placed third in a field of seven in the Russian presidential election last June -- and that was before the political disintegration and economic collapse had reached anything like their present stage...