An Easy Path for the Strongman-To-Be.

• Author: Lemieux, Pierre

The Age of the Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy around the World

By Gideon Rachman

288 pp.; Other Press, 2022

In his new book The Age of the Strongman, Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman argues that we have entered the age of the strongman and we can expect it to continue for a couple more decades. I did not find a formal definition of "strongman" in the book, but the reader gets the idea: it is a government ruler who concentrates the power of the state in his person--or tries to--to the detriment of the rule of law; he also claims to embody the people. The book's subtitle, How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy around the World, emphasizes the cult of personality that is built around strongmen.

Rachman relies on the idea that swings in politics last about three decades, followed by a change in direction (a bit reminiscent of the eternal return in ancient myths). So, for instance, the power of the democratic state grew from the end of World War II until the 1970s. Then, spurred by stagflation, the democratic majority got tired of the growth in government power, resulting in three decades of government in retreat--or so Rachman argues. Helped by the Great Recession, changing democratic majorities then brought about the age of the strongman around 2010. But why didn't the powerful democratic state return (assuming it was ever in retreat), instead of strongmen taking over? I will come back to this question later.

"As a result of this international movement towards personalized politics," Rachman argues, "it has become harder to maintain a clear line between the authoritarian and democratic worlds." I'll also come back to the question of the extent to which the democratic world was really non-authoritarian.

For now, let's focus on what Rachman's book is built around: interesting portraits of the strongmen who have appeared in the 21st century, not only in countries with new or potential democracies, but often in old democracies too.

Gallery of rogues / Strongmen share many common traits. They claim to embody the "will of the people," and they clash with political, legal, and private institutions that limit their power. They are nationalists. They often present themselves as defenders of religion despite their frequent personal impieties and moral flaws. Toughness (if not cruelty) is an important part of their image. They are liars or ignoramuses or both.

Their degree of power covers avast spectrum, from Xi Jinping in China, Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and Vladimir Putin in Russia at one extreme, to Donald Trump in America and Viktor Orban in Hungary at the other. Many others can be found between the two extremes, such as Narendra Modi in India, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Recep Tayyep Erdogan in Turkey. Each strongman's exact position along a power axis is, of course, a debatable matter because political power is a multidimensional phenomenon.

The author of The Age of the Strongman presents Putin, who came to power in 2000, as "the archetype and the model for the current generation of strongman leaders." Putin's image was crafted to present him as a savior-hero who would restore Russian greatness. After the invasion of Crimea, Rudy Giuliani, Trump's future lawyer, gushed of Putin, "That's what you call a leader." Many other populists admire the president of Russia.

On the use of often contradictory lies by Putin (and other strongmen), Rachman writes,

Vladimir Putin and his propagandists established the technique of a "fire-hose of falsehoods" as a fundamental political tool. The idea is to throw...