Benign, malign, and tolerable: authoritarianism across the spectrum of likeability

If western media and policymakers view and depict authoritarian leaders differently – depending on whether the autocrat is an ally or an adversary – is there a “spectrum of likeability” whereby some autocrats are presented as more acceptable than others? Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress and van Leeuwen 2020), this paper examines media representations in elite western news magazines of three world leaders viewed as authoritarian – Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump. Following Michel Foucault’s notion of “regimes of truth” (1980), this study conceptualises three representational autocratic archetypes – Benign, Tolerable, and Malign – arguing that the way an autocrat’s story is narrativised can lead to stereotyping and “othering” of their nations. The findings reveal that malign authoritarianism is considered deeply rooted in culture and history, with evocations of threatening myths; tolerable authoritarianism references both favoured and undesirable value systems, modernity and history; whereas benign authoritarianism centres more on personal traits.