JOHN KEANE Demagogues and Despots: Democracies on the brink. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck

Political theorist John Keane’s description of how demagogues and despots operate sounds a warning to safeguard democracy.

Democracy is based on the notion that people can govern themselves, and is designed to prevent dominance by a single group (an oligarchy), or an individual. John Keane is Professor of Politics at Sydney University, and in Demagogues and Despots he maintains that ‘democracy is desirable not because all women and men are “naturally” equal but because no man or woman is perfect enough to rule unaccountably over their fellows’.

Keane is worried about worldwide attacks on democracy and his book seeks to explain the ‘logic’ and operation of demagogues and despots, whose presence has been on the increase in recent decades.

The worldwide growth of a strange alliance between demagogues and despots is no coincidence … Considered as a type of rule practised by both demagogues and despots, despotism is a way of handling power that defies the laws of political gravity. It’s a peculiarly fake type of democracy led by rulers skilled in the arts of manipulating and meddling with people’s lives, marshalling their support, and winning their obedience. Despotism feeds upon the voluntary servitude of its subjects.

Demagogues operate within democracies, aiming to end democracy and become a despot. Despotic rule occurs in societies which are not democratic.

Demagogues thrive on the dysfunctionality, the messy, intractable problems of democracies. Its practitioners seek to inflame feelings of resentment and present themselves as the ones who can return a society to a glorious past – and thereby launch it into a wonderful future. Demagogues dumb down political discussions, mounting attacks on elites and ‘the importance of clarity of thought and evidence-based reasoning. Generalised stupidity is the thing.’

Demagogues indulge in dirty tricks in seeking – and holding on to – power.

There are threats and bribes in backroom meetings, dinner deals with business oligarchs, court victories, state-of-the-art dog whistling, troll factories and message bombing, and adversaries are intimidated … [There is] outright hostility to courts, independent media, regulatory watchdogs and other institutions that stand in [the] way … They dream of a form of rule in which there’s no independent judiciary, no troublemaking rebel journalists, no irritating NGOs, indeed no watchdog bodies or counterpowers at all.

Demagogues are masters at charming the electorate to gain power. Great use is made of parades and spectacles to demonstrate the bountiful wisdom and authority of the leader; social media and other outlets inform the electorate that the economy is growing, and everyone is better off. There is never-ending boasting and self-congratulation.

Scapegoating and the vilification of others to explain away problems the demagogue cannot solve are also standard. These ‘others’ will be particular minorities within society. In recent decades, the ‘others’ have been immigrants. Most western societies have political parties that focus on problems they imagine result from an influx of immigrants and refugees. Why do they receive benefits that should be ours? These others are then subject to vilification, violence, confinement and deportation.

The popular notion of despotism is a system of government where one person has unlimited and uncontrolled power over everyone else. However, Keane says, the situation is more complex than this.

These despotisms are political systems bound together and energised by top-to-bottom and criss-crossing connections … patronage radiates from the peaks of power, downwards and sideways, all the way to the bottom … Despots are surrounded by, and depend upon, thickets of official fixers and power managers … At every level in the hierarchy of power … [there are] dwarf despots who cultivate connections with well-placed others … Deals, bribes, kickbacks, favours and gifts of money and in kind are a common currency of power. Most institutions, including government bureaucracies, parliaments, the courts, businesses and universities, are captured by those string-pulling networks of patronage.

This is ‘getting on’ by who you know; a system based on corruption and smart dealing. Ructions can develop at the top levels of a despotism over the distribution of spoils and/or different factions trying to increase their power at the expense of others. Prominent figures sometimes find themselves falling out of the windows of tall buildings. The corruption inherent in despotism breeds criminality.

These shadowy webs of bribery and extortion attract the services of government regulators, prosecutors and judges and police bodies, who do more than turn a blind eye to this organised bribery … Organised extortion, prostitution, drug running and protection rackets are typically part of the corruption game, which comes wrapped in local versions of the omeratá, mafia codes of silence.

Like demagogues, despots ‘do all they can to charm people with their tunes … getting them to crave their domination by embracing it as their own’. One of the ways they do this is by adopting what Keane refers to as the ‘democratic style’. Elections for despots are nothing more than shams, ‘elections without democracy’ that are ‘a weapon for consolidating and legitimating their power’. More importantly, for Keane, these elections are rigged.

Despotisms exclude candidates, buy votes and intimidate voters. They conduct sensational media events, gerrymander constituency boundaries, alter electoral lists and miscount and magically disappear ballots.

And if things go awry, elections can always be stolen. Violence is used against those who complain and organise resistance to the continued rule of the despot.

Keane’s major purpose in Demagogues and Despots is to draw attention to the attacks currently being mounted on democracy and our freedoms. He sees how despotism ‘thrives on the nurturing of the spirit of voluntary servitude to voluntary power’, whereas the ‘spirit of democracy’ is the opposite, believing people can govern themselves.

For very good and understandable reasons, democracy is the non-violent champion of the weak and the wise against the strong and the foolish … It urges us to imagine and believe … [that] people can indeed live more fairly, non-violently and with dignity, in the company of different others they regard as their equals, not their victims.

Democracy rejects the rule by the few. It rests on the idea of an active and thriving civil society to ensure that no demagogue or despot can dominate the rest of us. This predicates institutions such as free elections, an independent judiciary, the scrutiny of power and institutions, anti-corruption bodies, rules forbidding politicians to work for entities they interacted with in politics when they retire, local self-government, a free press, rights of association and freedom of expression.

Keane is warning us of what lies ahead if we do not defend democracy; how despots and would-be demagogues will treat us if they obtain power. The choice is ours.

John Keane Demagogues and Despots: Democracies on the brink NewSouth 2026 PB 224pp $32.99

Braham Dabscheck is a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne who writes on industrial relations, sport and other things.

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Tags: civil society, corruption, current affairs, demagogues, democracy, despots, John | Keane, kickbacks, misinformation, politics, sham elections, vote rigging