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Public Communication in Totalitarian, Authoritarian and Statist Regimes

This article addresses the following issue: how distinctive was the political communication system that prevailed during the de Gaulle presidency? How democratic was it? To this end, this essay places the French political communication system in a comparative perspective and constructs a typology that contrasts different models, placing the emphasis on the ideology and elite mindset that underpin them. These types comprise totalitarianism, authoritarianism, statism and liberalism. This article makes two main arguments. Regarding France, it shows that statism, particularly since the de Gaulle presidency, has had a lasting influence on the country’s communication system. More generally, it is argued that political communication systems across the world remain fundamentally different from each other, and that the democratic model is better and freer than non-democratic ones.