Introduction

Summary

Political technology is defined, not as Russians define it as a synonym for politics, but as the 'supply-side engineering of the political system for partisan advantage'. Such manipulation is now common across many types of regimes: deteriorating democracies, so-called smart authoritarianisms and hybrid regimes, but particularly the latter. Manipulation techniques spread through various types of globalisation. Political manipulation can no longer be orientalised: corruption, judicial capture, propaganda and artificial structures to spread it are also increasingly prevalent in the West.