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How do dictators and authoritarians stay in power? Some autocrats seem unassailable, even after decades at the top. James Tilley, a professor of politics at Oxford University, finds out what's in the dictators' survival guide. How do they control ordinary people and stop revolts? How do they stop rivals from taking over? And how do they manipulate apparently democratic procedures like elections to secure their rule? This is another chance to hear a programme first broadcast in 2018 – but which has new relevance with President Putin’s authoritarian rule hindering significant domestic challenge to the invasion of Ukraine.

Producer: Bob Howard
Production Coordinators: Jacqui Johnson and Maria Ogundele
Editor: Hugh Levinson