All dictators need loyal elites to survive in office and govern effectively. High-level officials and other powerful figures can help an authoritarian ruler remain in power. These officials also assist in implementing policies, raising revenues, winning elections and punishing dissent.
In turn, most dictators tend to value loyalty over competence by rewarding more devoted officials. For instance, autocrats often reward those who are able to deliver higher votes for the ruling party. In turn, most dictators pay relatively less regard for whether such officials also deliver adequate policy performance.
Examining sycophancy can extend understanding of how autocracies work. As many observers have pointed out, Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 may partly have been a result of him being surrounded by “yes-men”, and not receiving adequate information and the potential risks involved in such an operation.
While our recent study cannot confirm or reject this hypothesis, it has shown that widespread sycophancy was thriving in Putin’s Russia – even many years before the war.
According to recent research I carried out with two other academics, for authoritarian officials, displaying loyalty goes beyond merely ensuring high turnout in elections. For many, it entails an everyday practice of sycophancy, that is, the use of flattery and praise of the ruler.
When many people think of authoritarian politics, they visualise Soviet or Chinese party members enthusiastically praising leaders like Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong during party congresses. In fiction, sycophancy is often represented as the core activity of officials, as is the case in Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat (2000) or Ismail Kadare’s The Successor (2003).
To date, however, there’s been little understanding about the logic of political sycophancy. Does it even pay off for those officials practising it?
New data science tools are helping to advance understanding of the language used in politics. Our study, published in the American Journal of Political Science, draws from thousands of speeches given by Russian governors during Vladimir Putin’s time in power, as well as important officials in Stalin’s Soviet Union (1924-53).
We analysed the word choices made by the governors including the ways they referred to their leaders and their policies. The study has made an interesting, perhaps counterintuitive finding. Contrary to our expectations, high levels of sycophancy weren’t common to all dictatorial officials.
Why some people act differently
There were significant differences in how officials referred to the ruler and his policies in their speeches. Such differences were noticeable even during the Great Terror in the Soviet Union, a purge when Stalin used brutal measures to get rid of anyone he thought of as an enemy or threat.
There is surprising variability in who will overpraise the autocrat and when and how they do so, according to our analysis. Sycophancy is practised most enthusiastically by those who feel vulnerable to the actions of the ruler.
In contemporary Russia under Putin, officials who are approaching the time for their reappointment, or are from economically weaker regions are much more inclined to display sycophantic behaviour.
They do so in public addresses or comments by routinely overpraising the autocrat. They also mimic their rhetoric, including Putin’s policy obsession with Ukraine. Those officials who have had alternative career paths are less likely to turn to overt sycophancy.
So sucking up to a leader is strongly driven by weighing up costs and benefits. After all, one local or regional official, advisor or minister can easily be substituted by another. History shows that even influential officials can easily be replaced.
Our research also shows that sycophancy generally pays off. Sycophantic officials stay in office for longer, and are more likely to get promoted.
It is unlikely that autocrats themselves routinely monitor whether their officials overpraise or ignore them. It is, however, plausible that, in general, dictators recognise and appreciate sycophancy as a public signal of loyalty and select and award such loyalists.
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Our finding that sycophants are rewarded for their use of flattery prompts new questions as to why all officials fail to engage in such behaviour. Investigating this fully will require further, possibly experimental, evidence. But our research suggests that there exists significant psychological and other motivational differences among individuals.
Such differences influence individual attitudes towards sycophancy. And even in authoritarian settings, lying makes people uncomfortable. This probably means that unless the level of repression is extremely high, as it was during the Great Terror in 1937-38, not everyone will be a sycophant.
Sycophancy in Putin’s Russia, as with other autocracies, may well mean that leaders do not always get the policies and outcomes they want delivered – just the political backers who flatter them the most.
Alexander Baturo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
