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
-
Europe’s New Nuclear Deterrence Debate and France’s Answer
Podcast
On March 2, 2026, in a speech at France’s Île Longue base, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled major changes to France’s nuclear deterrence doctrine. First, Macron annou...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
Podcast
Transatlantic Security / Middle East Security
Europe’s View on Operation Epic FuryOn February 28, the United States launched Operation Epic Fury, a major military campaign against Iran carried out alongside Israeli strikes. The opening wave targeted Iranian...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
Reflecting on Four Years of War in Ukraine
Podcast
This week marks the four-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Brussels Sprouts wanted to mark this somber milestone with a look at the conflict and the...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
Can China Capitalize on Changing Transatlantic Currents?
Podcast
This week’s episode of Brussels Sprouts picks up in the aftermath of the Munich Security Conference. The U.S. tone at Munich was notably more conciliatory than last year, as U...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
