A permanent and deliberate handicap. Absolute academic concert as i have to say the kind of is that is the option that some less let me in between those 2 extremes i think you know we go back to the seventys or eightys if we were talking then about exactly this question these countries going through growing pains and i think by the time weve got 2020 we need to recognize that countries that are stuck in this kind of middle ground between terrorism on the one hand and democracy in the other they hold elections but they rig the elections the same government a leader is in power for very long its im these countries arent simply having growing pains that are on the way to some wonderful democratic future need for a day you know complete or talk or sees that have no ability to have any criticism whatsoever they seem to be reasonably stable countries that are stuck in between these 2 extremes so. It would be i think we should expect countries like russia to look roughly the same intensity in 20 years time and its going to take quite a lot to shift russia even to a complete or a terran state that doesnt hold elections rule or to a much more Democratic State where we could genuinely talk about some of the troops and losing power i was drawing of 8 after the soviet union and i remember very vividly this transition from infuse the absent any an enthusiasm for democracy to. Cynicism not only among the people but also among the leaders and when it comes to the latter as. It was primarily driven by a realisation and deeply held belief that for the west democracy is not a value its not the goal its not something that they lead by its actually an instrument its in to all of many places its as if theyve been totally wrong about that. Tell me a little bit more because i dont really see why democracy would be a stick of the west so tell me a little bit more about where that perception comes from well he your book is not very flattering to you after it terry ends but i think youre ultimately confirmed i deeply have believed that everybody almost everybody uses different kinds of tricks and manipulation studio if you kind of some burned the house and took expression of political will and based on his democracies i do it in certain the way they are relying on laws and regulations to ensure that self interest authoritarian nations may be doing that and what in crew there are ways but ultimately i think the conclusion of your book is that everybody doesnt. No really i mean i dont think thats the conclusion theres a lot of countries on a book which dont really do it or at least do it less and theres a lot of countries in europe in north america that you know manipulates elections instead in ways not enough hours so in the United States for example it is true that historically black populations of minority populations a struggle to be able to vote and express their Political Rights and thats still an issue that the United States needs to do today its also true that gerrymandering is a major issue in the u. S. You know kind of politicians trying to choose their photos of them both just choosing their politicians carving up the electoral map in a very sad way that on a just so the United States has more of those problems but is still probably true that donald trump is going to lose the next election and stand down and thats a very key different situation to what we have say in russia recruits in or for example in uganda or president you erema 7 hes been a very long time now i think you would agree that donald trump is a very very unusual candidate as hes allowed to victory came as a major surprise to everybody so hes i think for now a standalone case when it comes to the american politics but up until him. They believe in this part of the world has been and in china for example the chinese have long described them are collections of he it hasnt they the feeling was that while they face main change the people in power stay the same and its just utter cation or alteration between the democrats and the republicans but by and large theyve passed the interests are still the same and the policies remain by and large the same. I think thats fairly true i dont know why when you say this part of the well part of the world are you referring to im referring to russia where were at and former soviet union which indeed have a tendency for keeping leaders in power for longer periods of time but that i think that it is a very widespread perception here is that its actually a more honest way of dealing with politics because the change does not always represent the change a thing thats the the message that the or the idea that is behind a lot of this cynicism that you know the faces may change but that. Power still remain the same. But i think it depends what you mean i mean you know where talking about the perception of average citizens in russia thats obviously to some extent you know controlled and shaped by a long period of information pushed by the government in russia just as a matter you know only that that that is not sure i mean that it and i am not interested in possession of the people or even propaganda academically do you think that the thing to change your face is in the United States not made me like excluding donald trump but this before don child with the change of people in power do you think the powers have actually changed the powers that be the thing they have i mean not noted the strike we know that big money big capital the arms trade the military complex Industrial Complex still survives on one leading to another said there are certain features of us politics that are common but its also true that the u. S. Was able to elect its best black president something that hasnt happened in many countries around the world and certainly not the worlds kind of white states peoples are tasers and mock receive the color of their presence in so i think being able to elect leaders of different races and different ethnicities different genders is and good indication of democracy you are asking about change being able to change the phone one color that maybe i know its your majority to another is i think one of the indications of democracy is. Not the only one the other one is being able obviously to change your d leaders there are indications of democracy where i reviewed the United States down and there we might talk about the ability of the received threats to tackle inequality and the way in which the 2 party system constrains the ability of more radical forces to come through but i dont think its right to say or make sense to say right now that the situation in the us actually doesnt allow for any kind of change in the way that some authoritarian regime is doing to really meaning that it has been you would agree that it would be a end of exaggeration if you apply that statements you any country even in the most autocratic regimes there is always a possibility of change because had those changes 1st and foremost serve those to give you speaking of which one of your most interesting findings is that you are in cherry in the scenes that hold and manipulate elections trying now to be more stable than those that dont hold any elections at all the fact that they feel the need to say ken is that ultimately at bad or a good thing as far as the moccasins consigning. Yeah i mean one of the things that i think i retain regimes do is they stoke the foundations of their future downfall because one of the things that they do is they encourage people to believe in elections and then when they try to manipulate elections people then become frustrated and sooner or later its ancien between the promise of elections and the failure to hold elections comes into collision and i think thats one of the things weve seen recently in bellatrix where we seen consistent attempts to manipulate elections you know basically until the people became sufficiently fed up with the failure of the promise to be allowed to choose the government then i think a really interesting question for us is you know what does that mean for the long term future and i think you know in countries like delhi reduced set in fact to seem to come together at the same time to getting to loosen presentation goes hold on power those factors and milk resident in many of our 10 states what youve just picked up is an intelligent tension within the space scenes that does comes to an equal into question elegy timoci and i think there are a set of facts as that then come into play right is the regime able to deliver Economic Development is it looking like its fulfilling its promises in other areas of elections doesnt lead to maintain a reputation does it avoid corruption scandals if you can do one of those things then the popular frustration with the electoral process is probably going to be kept in check when all of those things start to be triggered at the same time thats when the local authority regimes really starts trouble i mean that you had that. If you fix something there is ultimately a chance of you making it which is good for those who believe in democracy as you know as a genuine means of arranging Human Affairs as you point out in your writing. Democracy promotion is is a very passion tends to fill time when to me and aid and. 1000000000. 00 a year is here and yet the results seem to be very very superficial youre right in the above that. Were experiencing a real democratic deficit and not only in authoritarian regimes i think you are pretty clear that even in is that only democracy as there is a substantial democratic deficit and a lot of actors going to. Reap standing on window dressing rather practicing this this process authentically in their gag my question to you is whether it is a coincidence that we have observed this democratic decline ride over the period when democracy promotion has become so i share issue both in terms of them by me give me seems and in terms of their rhetorical attention abysses. Well you know i mean i think the ultimate answer to this is that democracy is driven domestically and internationally and weve seen efforts by International Organizations and governments to promote democracy in countries like iraq afghanistan and we see how difficult that it is old symmetry it has to be reduced domestically because otherwise International Actors need to be in the country 24. 00 sevenths to make a sustainable so any country in the world thats built a sustainable democracy is due to domestic sometimes of International Help domestically and one of the other things that we need to keep in mind is 10000000000 may sound like a lot but when you compare 10000000000 to the to budget in economies of the countries that were talking about its a tiny drop in the ocean so we have International Governments that are trying to promote democracy but weve really its of the small budgets in processes that are actually controlled domestically and thats why i think we have this mismatch between this great ambition to promote democracy around the world and as you say the kind of limited effects of that ultimately theres only so much International Actors can do ive seen you write recently that this summer grab that the west is turning its back on democracy promotion is abroad do you think its possible that there was real altoona to chop the issue completely to allow countries like russia like many others around the world to try that hand at this enterprise biden south without giving hardliners inside the country an excuse that you know these people are trying to herd us through in democracy promotion therefore we have to you know be cattle about this do you think theres a chance of the west actually allowing other countries to do it for themselves. Well i think youre putting the question in an unhelpful way frankly i dont really think thats what was going on during the course a number of cases where the secretive u. S. Government has been accused of using democracy promotion as a tool of Foreign Policy and we need to hold them accountable for that Donald Trumps policy and inconsistency between how he treats a venezuelan integrity is embarrassing and unhelpful but his letter to president clintons policy in democracy promotion i mean its very likely you are sidestepping him but hes one of the champions of it. Im not sidestepping anything im answering your question if you stop long enough and ill give you an answer what i think we need to recognize is that in many cases the International Community is providing assistance to governments that have asked for a lot of the money that we just talked about is going to governments to help them establish electoral commissions and your training to help them run elections to operate in that way International Actors have to be invited they cant simply offer money to electoral commissions or governments dont want to governments who passed legislation or simply behaved as they kind of Election Observation and in many cases what is happening is the west is funding organizations and programs and movements that either supported by the government will they want Civil Society groups that are based in the country consent i would fully agree with you if you would say that what we should see is International Funding for domestic process is Way International regimes do not try and push their own agenda i think thats true but i think it would be wrong to suggest that you know a lot of the countries were talking about is simply been the case that the International Community has come and tried to end it being in processes that were already going on in most cases in better reese is a great example of this International Community really gets engaged when theres already a political crisis you know looking better reeses last few elections will is nothing was said about the elections when there was no public protest this time around everyone speaking about the elections not because the International Community has decided to middle this time around but because theres a mass protest in the streets and that has triggered International Action so then we just need to complicate that International Process a little bit more while professor cheeseman just as we were getting all worked that we have to take assure the break and perhaps cool down the to believe that in a few moments states. A new gold rush is underway and gonna thousands of ill equipped workers are flocking to the gold field. Hoping to strike it rich is a good. Day over the children are torn between gone. My family was very poor i thought i was doing my best to get back to school which side will have the strongest appeal. They gave it to all my social class. People to poverty by 1st. If youre born into a poor family if youre born into a minority family if youre born into a family that only has a single parent that really constrains your life chances people pay on average 15 years old a good morning to generational poverty. Its a. Fight every day you meet your needs and the needs of your family. Welcome back to worlds apart that need cheeseman professor of democracy of the university of their manhattan and call their of how did you meet an election professor cheeseman imagined a couple of times and i dont know if president look has read your book or not but its you definitely seems to be i dont have the book example of a leader who used the lashings strength and used grip on power until these year if you watch his recent interviews he seemed to be genuinely blindsided by olby mass products that followed president ial elections and old allegations of vote rigging. I wonder if its fair to say that these type of democracy imitation works only it until it doesnt. Then we talked about this to robi i mean i think in my previous thought and so you know we talked about it. You know she. Nice to put off this trick for a number of times in a row but to mentally if you see corruption scandals the failure to deal effectively with coded a growing perception of economic stagnation a growing sense of a desire for change if you dont have the kind of ability to rotate the political elites within the ruling party up and authoritarian regime you know sooner or later going to face a challenge like this in a little over 10 anitas hat and one of the responses has been the question if you see a big uprising in moscow you shut it down enough you might go to get ahead of it the same in tanzania the same in uganda you shut down the airwaves you increase censorship and a lot of spending and its theres a Great Britain lets not put them to the side though because theyre using the Law Enforcement forces cuckoo even why they have it handed way as well and so i dont understand how we could draw any crippling between beller where the Security Forces are torturing people and the United Kingdom could you explain how you could possibly join improvements speaking of an equivalence ad saying that every country uses its Security Apparatus in a way that suits its Political Goals and i think some of the son of the protestant in the Great Britain aboard this person in pretty shabby handed way thats all im saying its not about the political equivalence but i think the reality people here its actually you know repeating this is fundamental you are trying to excuse it there its own practice is in human rights abuses and i think its fair to say that d arab leaders and tearing to pieces are crude i agree with you 100 percent im just saying that and he absolutely follows from gimpel that status democracies are also using treats those treats a different but not less manipulative they are less manipulative but i do think i mean the a god given of the book is that these things happen everywhere but not that they happen to the same extent everywhere i do want to go back to the president look i think if you if i may because i think hes a very candid manipulator. I think a few years ago and youre right about that in the impulse loan that gets you to. Emperour in the modes with the with the purpose of actually decreasing the count from i think 90 percent up until. You make it more believable and as funny or obnoxious as that anecdote may be i think it also reflects a deeply how believe that a lot of sins are ultimately not about the will of your people but about presenting. You know a suitable story for the International Community can you only play president lukashenko for maintaining that story yes really. Who would you blame the International Environment that exists that puts democracy promotion. In its rather superficial form. The actual process is on the ground. The International Community is not responsible for that the International Community would rather see genuine domestic process is the reason i was going to happen as president. So again the circle goes back to the president because frankly being welcome again you seem to want to excuse im going to i dont really understand why you would take a side of experience who as we speak abusing human rights in the most terrible way anything decided their very very man taking the side of democracy believe it or not but if you go back to bellows i think its pretty clear that while. The social maturing in the political maturity in that country is genuine its also pretty avid and that it comes into conflict with geopolitical games and all the belorussian neighbor bellows his neighbors are using the situation pretty bad or ensuring their interests would you say that thats not the case. Well i mean to go back to your previous point would you then say that instead of allowing delegates to get away with a superficial form of democracy the western government should have been forced to more genuine form of democracy what i was trying to say and i actually got to save you from your book is that there is a lot of sort of window dressing and pretending you know the reason why democratic autocrats feel the need to fake is because there are there is a pressure to fix certain democratic processes and in the case of some countries the. Irregularities could could be ignored to give that suitable for certain powers that be and in kilo theyre going to go for that matter how would you think it would be better for them not to have to fake it at all would it be better to have a situation where they didnt have to fake it and actually they could just be brutally oh its airy and they dont have to pretend to hold elections they dont have to pretend to allow freedom of speech would be bad if they didnt have to do that is that you look at a situation and this interview is not about me but if you ask me i think it would be bad its you give nations a chance to develop that own process as in fact i think its very arrogant its not supremacy is to believe that you have to need wive political and social change for others eve democracy is it indeed the bass way of organizing Human Affairs which i believe it is that you should accept the possibility that other nations could also arrive and that without your help thats what i believe in. Scholl but in that case what wed actually be saying is that perhaps for the next 102030 years the International Community would tolerate far greater human rights abuses and far lower levels of freedoms if the latent talking thinking isnt doing really anything i mean. As far as im concerned its only creating as you know rhetorical battles but its not doing anything to stop this human rights abuses were going to think i mean again but the whole discussion of bella reese has demonstrated that there is an effect to the fact that Lucas Shankar had to hold elections gave an element of hope to the opposition the fact that he continued to beat them undermine his legitimacy and now we see it very clearly that the majority of people in belarus do not want him as a leader so the openings that were fostered by the International Community in that country have allowed the domestic grossest its a place much more quickly than it might International Community absolutely has nothing to do that we have to give the credit to the belorussian people and speaking out which for now it looks interim ancient parallel with russian hout but i think its pretty clear to everybody that there is a signal level of tech city about can. That. He hasnt been able to insure his cell agendum is he asking wanted for these elections speaking not in moral terms and but in political terms. Do you think what do you thing it everything like this can do you know blank for it. Can it return to the old ways. One bath possible strategies it can employ to ensure its own security and in physical security i think that you would recognize that its ecan situation and the basket for its people as well as the preservation of the legacy that president lukashenko done in athens country i mean i dont feel that the people of east right now want the aleutian go legacy right this year the length lucas shank a legacy of one of corruption libertarianism failed economic policies and stagnation but i dont think there are 30 he also built the can and if the economy of the country you have to give him some credit you can avoid the hole to one side i mean part of the reason people are protesting is because because the can now mean situation is not favorable because they do not believe that this government has the economic Interest Deduction in it because they say as we all see this isnt recognized that there are certain things that he has done for his country they say that its just his time to go that thats it but they are not talking to him in bloody truth and actually trying to people who are out on the streets calling for someone to go and not trying to preserve that persons legacy it sounds of the options that he has available to him obviously he has to she has and try to reform and training to do smooth tourettes democratic processes that will buy off the opposition my sense is that just wont work the opposition is too strong and she just mr proposal approaches and you can sing who doesnt want to share power anyway or he can become increasingly repressive until he has something close to a Totalitarian Police state to contain the opposition of a sufficient opposition leaders and hope that he then survives the International Sanctions that will follow her fashion support must. Since right now as he will go for the latter option unless one of 2 things happens one is faces a major force of opposition from within the ruling party itself well or until putin says actually this is becoming to be dont want to have to throw you out me about he going to pull for someone else to come in who we can see is someone we can work with but hope it will stability so i think its hard to see a short Term Solution to my own sense is that theres going to be a lot more bloodshed and pain before this is all about well we dont have time to go into russia there is one question and i want to ask you that was bugging me as i was reading your book i had a feeling that all those tricks electoral tricks that you are describing im no longer an easily a political in either democratic or attack craddock saddening i have this feeling that every new generation of voters. Is becoming the last and last. Haitian with these kinds of many places and what they demand from the leader and what they demand from the south east changing is that Wishful Thinking on my pride or is it supported by the now the its a kind of mouse game i mean voters get wise to lead us and start to get fed up and leaders start to use new strategies Digital Media has created opportunities for opposition parties and for voters to you know hold leaders accountable and to scrutinize them and to do things like in a more effective Election Observation but it also creates opportunities for leaders to then take control of that sense of that and use exactly the same platforms to put out their positions so one of the things we talk about a little bit in the book and i think is really important if all it is that you know the way that elections have been made. A lot of countries are now using Electronic Technology to run their elections you can many pilate Electronic Technology just as much as you can manual technology and so the big battleground in the future maybe digital me play should acking etc when i was in the past it was starting in gerrymandering so yeah i think youre right that voters get wise but i think its also to that leaders are often one step ahead they very well founded they often spend a lot of money on advisors and those advisors often know the latest new relation strategies and one of the problems for election observers is that they often say look were were almost always fighting the last election looking at what was done and trying to stop it and the leader is a way to begin the future election trying to find a new strategy and i think that game of cat and mouse is probably going to keep playing out over the next decade well present shes never have to leave it there really appreciate here is the spirit and you can do i think there are going to have a lovely day you have a beautiful watching hope its here again next week and all the part. Of. Her. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy confrontation let it be an arms race in. Spearing dramatic developments only mostly im going to resist i dont see how that strategy will be successful very. Time to sit down and talk. A new gold rush is underway and. Thousands of ill equipped workers are flocking to the gold fields hoping to strike it rich heres the good. As. Those that work children are torn between gold. My family was very poor i thought i was doing my best to get back to school which side will have the strongest appeal. In our news review of the week russian opposition figure he says he is making progress in his recovery after being allegedly poisoned. Continued to wrangle over evidence in the case. People to take are in the latest opposition rally in the by the russian capital as anger over the disputed president ial election there fails to subside. And the rich serve 1st charity the small group of wealthy nations set off all over are all potential