![]() The special virtue of Naím’s book lies in the mordant detailing of its profiles, particularly those of certain second-tier autocrats-less famous than Putin and Erdoğan, but exemplary of the rise of what he calls “3P” (populist, polarizing, and post-truth) politicians. Komireddi’s “ Malevolent Republic,” while Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s “ Strongmen” is a cross-historical study, with a focus on gender politics: tyranny and masculinity are tightly allied. Narendra Modi plays a limited role in both, but is studied in K. S. And these two books follow a marching band of others. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman’s “ Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century” (Princeton) offers a social-scientific perspective on the mechanics of the new autocrats and their common world view. Martin’s) is a foreign-policy maven’s account of how recent demagogues have come to power and used the tools of our time-social media, television, the society of spectacle-to promote one-man rule and the suppression of dissent. Moisés Naím’s “ The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century” (St. Although we refer to them by the same name, some are caused by cigarettes and some by UV radiation and many have no traceable cause at all.īut which pathology is which, and how do you tell them apart? Two new books, each with virtues of its own, take on the question. Cancers all have a family resemblance, and each has a specific pathology. The unexciting truth is probably that authoritarians are a permanent feature of human existence, and that an array of circumstances allows them to flourish. If you believe that this time is different, you can search for a durable fix-a more equitable economy, a gentler form of globalization, the tempered restoration of national identity-while knowing that the fix may not fix it. If you conclude that the situation was ever thus, you will believe that it will likely be righted at last, but also that the cycle will never end. Whichever position you adopt comes with optimistic and pessimistic takeaways. We find ourselves using the same names-dictator, tyranny, fascism-to designate very different people and processes. This account has continuities with the old ones, but insists that the particulars of a moment matter, and create authoritarian leaders of a specific mold. In the twenty-first century, the story would be that, say, globalization produces inequality (or that immigration produces panic), and that the resulting anxiety intersects with the siloing of social media. In either case, a period of turbulence is followed by a period of terror.īut it’s also possible that dictators represent an ever-changing category, shaped by local specifics. Though it most often makes a left turn, the process can turn right, as with Franco, in Spain. Something like this happened twice during the French Revolution, first with the rise of the Jacobins and then with Napoleon’s coup d’état the same pattern occurred with the Communist revolutions in Russia and in China. A tyrant rises to fulfill that need.Īnother account says that, in times of violent social change, the most militant of factions tend to triumph, and then the leader of the faction becomes the dictator of the land. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In one standard account, the successes of a liberal society-taking in alien influences, expanding individual rights, and profiting from pluralism-spur a backlash among a threatened segment of the population (usually an odd coalition of underclass and overlord), who yearn for some phantasmal, völkisch, organic community. If the run of dictators is approximately the same as it has always been, we might conclude that our strongman problem is not traceable to a specific ailment but to a constant, bellows-like oscillation of societies that move toward openness and then close down. Its answer has consequences for our actions. Are the authoritarians who grace, or disgrace, our world, from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Vladimir Putin, more like or unlike their twentieth-century predecessors? This is not an academic question-well, actually, it is an academic question, but a good kind of academic question. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, as the song has it-and now let us meet the new dictators and see whether they are the same as the old. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |