Guided democracy, also called managed democracy, is a term for a democratic government with increased autocracy. Governments are legitimated by elections that are free and fair but emptied of substantive meaning in their ability to change the State's policies, motives, and goals.
In other words, the government has learned to control elections so that the people can exercise all their rights without truly changing public policy. While they follow basic democratic principles, there can be major deviations towards authoritarianism. Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the State's continuous use of propaganda techniques.
The term was first for Indonesia, but it is now also widely employed in Russia, where it was introduced into common practice by the Kremlin theorists, in particular Gleb Pavlovsky. Other examples include Hungary under Viktor Orban.
Famous quotes containing the words guided and/or democracy:
“My belief is that no being and no society composed of human beings ever did, or ever will, come to much unless their conduct was governed and guided by the love of some ethical ideal.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“... democracy is not only service, action, brotherhood—it is spirit—spirit free, indefinable, all-pervasive, that holds us to its revelations even when we seek to escape them.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)