The tumult in our current politics supplies the impetus for this intriguing and spritely volume, which begins with a stark question: “Are you wondering if your government is inching (or hurtling) toward dystopia?” (p. xi) Writing in the aftermath of the twin shocks of Brexit and Trump, Amy Atchison and Shauna Shames blend popular culture, political theory, and history in pursuit of the production of a “citizens’ guide” to surviving and, eventually overthrowing repressive governments, and recognizing those that may be headed in that direction. We might say that the authors are mapping a new field of comparative political nightmares, where the line between the fictional and the real is somewhat blurred.
Whereas it is common to introduce comparative politics by focusing on the concepts and procedures of democracy, Atchison and Shames instead invite the reader to imagine living in a state where the achievement of democracy is a far-off dream (how much imagination this requires in present circumstances may be a matter of some debate.) They elaborate on the characteristic features of authoritarian dystopias via contemporary fictions like The Handmaid’s Tale and The Hunger Games, as well as old standards like 1984. The book defines dystopia as, essentially, a repressive government that eliminates many personal liberties. In one of their more innovative moves, the authors assign a Freedom House score to the fictional states of the dystopic canon.
In a very effective chapter, Atchison and Shames place economics at the center of the dystopian problematic. Unrestrained capitalism is posited to be a front of repression, with the authors reading Adam Smith’s invisible hand theory as a capitalist utopia that inevitably fails and degenerates into an exploitive nightmare. The circa 1980s/’90s subgenre of “capitocratic” fictions, positing a politics dominated by corporate forces, is effectively analyzed. The chapter blends concise intellectual histories of capitalism and communism with a pithy and coherent overview of modern economic history, tracing how different economic periods produce different kinds of political fiction. The intertwined discussion of Marxism, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century economic inequality, and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (the first dystopian movie) is particularly well done.
Atchison and Shames next examine repressive government from the viewpoint of the oppressor and the oppressed. The strategies and tactics of dystopian government—eliminate the opposition, impose a panopticon-like level of citizen surveillance, use force liberally—are elaborated. Not discussing another tactic—the creation of a false reality wherein the state is infallible and morally unimpeachable—represents a missed opportunity. Real-world repressive regimes use powerful fictions to create this false consciousness, and an examination of these fictions—the utopian myths pedaled by dystopian governments—would have added an extra layer of complexity to the fiction/real-life dialectic.
In their examination of strategies of individual resistance, Atchison and Shames puncture the Hollywood narrative of a hero figure making all the difference by pointing out that successful real-world resistance is collective, slow, and the result of careful planning. Finding a hero should not be the goal of the resistance, they argue. Solving the collective action problem is a far more pressing task. They further note that, even though violent resistance makes for good fiction, nonviolent resistance is much more effective in the real world.
While the authors give short shrift to the role of prominent individuals in resisting authoritarianism, they could perhaps have given greater consideration to the role of the authoritarian leader themselves. Can fiction help us resolve the question of whether the strongman is a symptom or cause of democratic decay and authoritarian consolidation? These are counterfactual matters in the real world—whither post-1999 Russian politics absent the particular skill set of Vladimir Putin, or US politics without the surprise Trump victory in 2016?—that seem particularly ripe for analysis via the tools of fiction, with its explorations of the road-not-taken. In 1984, of course, Big Brother was likely a fictitious regime symbol rather than a real person. Yet in other authoritarian nightmares of both reality and imagination, quite a lot rides on the particular pathologies of the dictator and the projection of his or her psychology onto the political system.
A poignant final chapter represents a paean to democratic moderation. Democracy is slow and messy, the authors concede, but it is the best cure for dystopia. This chapter is a how-to guide for a successful resistance faced with the task of building a new polity. The basics of constitution writing, institutional design, and fostering an effective political party system are presented. Democracy is fragile, the authors caution, and authoritarian backsliding is a constant danger.
Survive and Resist is a subversive take on the comparative politics genre. It reminds us how fortunate are those who live in stable democracies and that the institutions of democracy need constant tending. The fear that populism and the toxic effects of social media are undermining the stability of many advanced democracies pervades the book. This is much more than a clever way to interest the general reader in political science concepts: it is a call to action. “Pick an institution and defend it,” Atchison and Shames exhort the reader. “Don’t talk about attacks on ‘our institutions’ unless you’re making them yours by acting on their behalf. Follow the courts or the media, or even a single newspaper, and speak up on its behalf” (p. 212).
Survive and Resist is effective in exploring one way in which fiction can productively dialogue with real-world politics—by way of analogy from one realm (fiction) to another (the real world). Another important way this relationship can work is through ideation, where fiction is tapped as an insight into how a society is thinking about itself, expressing its hopes and fears and circulating its values. Another way is critique, where the fictional world, initially unfamiliar to the reader, gradually reveals itself as the manifestation of problems and injustices in the reader’s empirical reality, thus opening up a range of possibilities for change.
The book aims at, and achieves, the analogical goal, but leaves the intriguing possibilities of ideation and critique largely unexplored. Brexit and Trump prompted the authors to write this book, and if the ideation theory is correct, these events also must give rise to some new fictions dealing with the anxieties that liberal society now feels. I thought, while reading this book, of two recent HBO series: Years and Years, about near-future Britain, and Watchmen, about an alternative reality in present-day America. One would also imagine, if the ideation theory is correct, that it is no accident that so many of our fictional portrayals of politics have shown a dysfunctional system being worked over by a mendacious elite. I wonder whether the authors might argue for more positive portrayals of democratic politics in fiction to accompany their call to defend our real-world institutions. Would the authors agree that some of our cynical political fictions—House of Cards, Veep, Scandal—have played a negative role in circulating a pernicious view of political actors? To put it another way, if democracy is a cure for dystopia, should we demand of our popular culture that it at least sometimes portrays democracy working well and not always badly?
Moving to critique, one feels that an implicit yet unarticulated indictment of disciplinary political science itself is lurking between the lines of the text. What role has professional political science played in failing to prevent or even facilitating our present perilous politics, or in leaving us with so few tools to understand it that fictional worlds represent a more reliable guide? If, as the authors argue, Adam Smith’s idealized view of capitalism is in fact a classic utopian mirage containing within it the seeds of capitocratic dystopia, what of the idealized views of political behavior represented by the rational choice school? Has methodological individualism led to an atomized politics dominated by ultra-cynical politicians and alienated voters, each of whom are studied by a disinterested and inward-looking discipline posturing about its scientific bona fides? Could a more pluralistic and public-facing discipline, one that embraced the kind of interweaving of fiction and politics elegantly accomplished in this book, have a more positive effect on society?
