Since its independence in the 1990s, Northern Macedonia has long endured ethnic conflicts between the ethnic Macedonians and the minority ethnic Albanians. Prime Minister Gruevski utilized a pro-Macedonian nationalist narrative to consolidate support and rise to power, exacerbating ethnic divides in the process.

Autocrats and Racial/Ethnic Divides: Northern Macedonia

Bolivia has a large indigenous population that is significantly poorer than the white and mestizo populations of the country. Evo Morales galvanized indigenous support through ethnic and socioeconomic populism to rise to the presidency, promising to improve the quality of life for indigenous people. Morales used his resulting popularity to justify centralizing power and defying term limits to extend his rule. 

Autocrats and Racial/Ethnic, Socio-economic Divides: Bolivia

Many would-be autocrats, particularly in the Western world, paint their opponents as elite and out-of-touch liberals, juxtaposed with everyday conservative people. In this way, autocrats can justify attacking their opponents—often with broad public approval—if they cast their opponents as enemies of the people.

Autocrats and Elite-People Divides

Autocrats exacerbate long-existing social divides (such as racial or ethnic divides, political divides, etc.) to destabilize a country’s political system and garner popular support.

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Would-be autocrats running in democratic elections build a winning base of support through three overlapping strategies: exploiting or exacerbating political polarization, exacerbating existing social divides (e.g., racial, ethnic, or elite-versus-people divides), and engaging in populist campaigning. Together these tactics mobilize enough support to enable and maintain the autocrat's rise to power.

How Autocrats Manipulate the Electorate to Rise to Power in Democracies

Autocrats either take advantage of extant political polarization, exacerbate political divides themselves, or employ a mixture of both strategies to rise to power within democracies.

How Autocrats Utilize and Exacerbate Polarization

In the context of a polarized electorate divided by ideological issues and social divisions, autocrats often employ populistic rhetoric in their campaigns to achieve broad public support. This populism is typically divisive and seeks to pit an autocrat’s supporters against supporters of democracy.

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