ABSTRACT
This chapter first focuses on the concept of the authoritarian public sphere and discusses its theoretical underpinnings. Second, it elaborates five dimensions of state infrastructure typical of the construction and maintenance of the contemporary authoritarian public sphere: traditional media, schools, political parties, legislation, and online control. Third, it shows how authoritarian public spheres operated in Kim Jong Il's North Korea and in Burma/Myanmar before the country underwent significant liberalization in 2011. The political public sphere is most often associated with democratic contexts in which people congregate to discuss and debate important issues. It resides between the official state sphere and the realm of private interactions. An authoritarian public sphere helps autocratic leaders maintain their power. The authoritarian public sphere, in other words, inverts the ideal democratic public sphere and is a venue dominated by the state rather than a sphere that necessarily challenges the state.
