Spectacle, Populism & the Fate of Democracy

From Trump gleefully handing out fries at McDonald's to Putin posing shirtless on horseback like a petrol-station calendar pin-up, today's strongmen have mastered political theatre, the performances designed to shape how power is seen and felt, in order to hollow out democracy from within.

Too often, pundits and even scholars dismiss these stunts as gimmicks, convinced that in the grand scheme of things they do not really matter. Yet it is precisely through these ways of communicating with the electorate that the real battle for legitimacy takes place. Yet it is within these seemingly throwaway performances that the contest for legitimacy is fought and won.

Understanding the work of political theatre, and the techniques that make it effective, has become nothing short of urgent. These spectacles do more than entertain or distract. They stir longing, travel frictionlessly through digital worlds, and calcify the political imagination into anger. In doing so, they lay bare the operating system of populist power, built on that slippery quality some call “authenticity”.

To name its mechanics is to break its spell and to imagine other scripts for our shared future.

About the author

I’m Goran Đurić, PhD, a Serbian–Australian scholar of political performance. Having lived through both the collapse and the turbulent rebuilding of democracy in Serbia, I became interested in how political spectacle fuels the authoritarian turn of our time and how pro-democracy movements resist it.

The Authoritarian Playbook brings this research into public view through commentary, case studies, and practical resources.