Why do autocracies differ in terms of their strategies for propaganda? This is the fundamental question explored in Propaganda in Autocracies. In the book, Erin Baggott Carter and Brett Carter open with a puzzle to explain why propaganda in the Republic of Congo tends to include more criticism and covers news on political rivals, whereas propaganda in the People's Republic of China tends to have a mouthpiece function displaying its strength. The book argues that these two strategies—referred to as persuasion and domination—are explained by institutions. The coercive nature of autocracies leads to uncertainty among citizens about the autocrat's performance. Yet as electoral constraints become more binding, political elites will use persuasion and propaganda will be less biased toward the regime. In the absence of electoral constraints, citizens solely have the option of removing autocrats by mass protests. In this case, autocrats will choose domination to convince citizens of their capacity for repression.

The book tests this theory in two steps. After developing theoretical expectations based on a Bayesian approach toward studying propaganda, the first part of the book focuses on the relationship between electoral constraints and newspaper content. The second part of the book then investigates the relationship between newspaper cont