Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

OURS IS THE AGE OF THE STRONGMAN, of heads of state like Berlusconi and Putin who damage or destroy democracy and use masculinity as a tool of political legitimacy.

The initial responses of illiberal heads of state to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic are a case in point. All crises are leadership tests that clarify the core values, character, and governing style of rulers and their allies. Yet a public health emergency exposes with particular efficiency the costs of a perennial feature of autocratic rule: the repudiation of norms of transparency and accountability.

While populism is not inherently authoritarian, many strongmen past and present have used populist rhetoric that defines their nations as bound by faith, race, and ethnicity rather than legal rights. For authoritarians, only some people are “the people,” regardless of their birthplace or citizenship status, and only the leader, above and beyond any institution, embodies that group. This is why, in strongman states, attacking the leader is seen as attacking the nation itself, and why critics are labeled “enemies of the people” or terrorists.10

The leaders discussed here have all put their mark on the authoritarian playbook—a set of interlinked tools and tactics that have evolved over a century. Strongmen focuses on propaganda, virility, corruption, and violence, as well as the tools people have used to resist authoritarianism and hasten its fall.

Authoritarians hold appeal when society is polarized, or divided into two opposing ideological camps, which is why they do all they can to exacerbate strife.

Picking up on powerful resentments, hopes, and fears, they present themselves as the vehicle for obtaining what is most wanted, whether it is territory, safety from racial others, securing male authority, or payback for exploitation by internal or external enemies.

The decay of truth and democratic dissolution proceed hand in hand, starting with the insurgent’s assertion that the establishment media delivers false or biased information while he speaks the truth and risks everything to get the “real facts” out. Once his supporters bond to his person, they stop caring about his falsehoods. They believe him because they believe in him.

On one issue, the strongman has been consistent: his drive to control and exploit everyone and everything for personal gain.

Elites are the authoritarian’s most important promoters and collaborators. Afraid of losing their class, gender, or race privileges, influential individuals bring the insurgent into the political system, thinking that he can be controlled as he solves their problems (which often involves persecuting the left).30 Once the ruler is in power, elites strike an “authoritarian bargain” that promises them power and security in return for loyalty to the ruler and toleration of his suspension of rights.

Mussolini prepared the script used by today’s authoritarians that casts the leader as a victim of his domestic enemies and of an international system that has cheated his country.

Strongman national projects generally leverage three time frames and states of mind: utopia, nostalgia, and crisis.

“Guilt is exile’s eternal companion,” writes Hisham Matar, who as the son of Gaddafi opponent Jaballa Matar became one of millions of exiles who followed their countries’ fates from abroad.

As leaders stabilize their rule, they use propaganda to legitimate their authority. Discrediting the press is a kind of insurance policy. When journalists turn up evidence of the government’s violence or corruption, the public will already be accustomed to seeing them as partisan.

Today’s strongmen are well aware that every minute the public and the press spend on the outrage du jour is time they’re not mobilizing for political action or investigating abuses of power.46

Only too late do some realize that the destructive energies the leader unleashes can be turned against them. In the strongman’s world, everyone, torturers included, can be discarded when his or her usefulness has ended.

Yet Berlusconi’s decade in power merits attention as a cautionary tale for America, Brazil, and other nations now under antidemocratic assault. The Italian prime minister operated in an open society but gradually eroded support for government accountability, mutual tolerance, respect for freedom of expression, and other bedrock democratic values.

TO COUNTER AUTHORITARIANISM, we must prioritize accountability and transparency in government. At the heart of strongman rule is the claim that he and his agents are above the law, above judgment, and not beholden to the truth. Accountability also matters as a measure of open societies because the old yardstick—elections—is less reliable.