Dictators and Queen Bees: What Mean Girls Can Teach Us about Power and Political Survival in Authoritarian Regimes

This study examines the mechanisms underpinning authoritarian resilience, focusing on the case of Vladimir Putin’s rule from 1999 to 2024 using a theoretical framework inspired by Mean Girls (2004). The film’s depiction of high school social hierarchies—where power is maintained through manipulation, loyalty enforcement, and the suppression of challengers serves as a metaphor for autocratic survival. Just as Regina George consolidates her dominance through media control, elite co-optation, and the strategic elimination of threats, Putin’s regime mirrors these dynamics in the political sphere. Using process tracing as a qualitative method, the research tests four hypotheses: media control, elite co-optation, electoral manipulation, and power-sharing stability. By analyzing thirteen key trigger events, the findings suggest that state-controlled media was instrumental in shaping public perception, suppressing dissent, and framing events to bolster Putin’s legitimacy. Elite co-optation through rewards and purges ensured regime stability by neutralizing challengers and securing loyalty. Electoral manipulation effectively eliminated competition, with opposition candidates being barred, discredited, or eliminated. Lastly, constitutional reforms extended and reset Putin’s rule, allowing him to sustain his dominance. This study offers a unique lens for analyzing the mechanisms that sustain autocratic power by bridging pop culture and empirical political analysis, providing a roadmap for analyzing the endurance of authoritarian regimes despite formal leadership transitions.