February 07, 2023
Personalist Strongmen: Challenges and Trends
Looking back, 2022 was a bad year for strongmen. Take Russia, where Vladimir Putin’s poor judgement led to a war that has not only devasted Ukraine, but left Russia seriously weakened and Putin’s own hold on power more tenuous. In China, as well, widespread protests over the country’s heavy-handed COVID restrictions tarnished the increasingly personalist Xi Jinping’s image, culminating in the most overt signs of dissent that observers have seen there in years.
Personalist authoritarianism is harmful to global democracy, as these regimes are the least likely form of dictatorship to democratize upon their collapse.
Even outside of autocracies, the world’s strongmen faced setbacks last year. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro lost re-election in October 2022, prompting calls among his supporters for the military to intervene and overturn the result. Likewise, in the United States, the Republican Party’s poor performance in mid-term elections in November 2022 dealt a major blow to Donald Trump’s image and prospects for returning to power. The bad news for strongmen trickled over into 2023 too, with the Czech Republic’s former highly personalist Prime Minister Andrej Babis losing in the country’s presidential election in January.
Read the full article from Democracy Paradox.
More from CNAS
-
The Axis of Upheaval
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a critical catalyst for cooperation among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—what the authors call the “axis of upheaval....
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Nicholas Lokker
-
Transatlantic Security / Securing U.S. Democracy Initiative
Respect Umpires — on the Field and in the CourtroomCongress shouldn’t let the administration’s contempt slide. None of us should....
By Will Rogers
-
Ukraine War Update with Ben Hodges and Jane Kobzova
During the past several weeks, and since around March of this year, Russia has increased the intensity of its attacks on Ukraine. Moscow is launching brutal aerial assaults on...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
NATO's Biggest Threats
In the wake of a very short communiqué and an abbreviated Summit, many questions have been left unanswered by allies. How NATO would manage a reduction of military assets in E...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend