Gideon Rachman, chief international affairs columnist for the Financial Times, publishes The Age of Authoritarian Leaders (Critique), a reflection on the rise in recent decades of strongmen in democracies and dictatorships around the world, from Vladimir Putin, the first, to Xi Jinping, from Bolsonaro to Trump, Orban, Erdogan and… Boris Johnson, whom he includes in his extensive gallery of first-hand portraits, which he talks about at the Aspen Institute in Madrid.
He says that we are experiencing the greatest attack on democratic values ??since 1930. Why?
When Putin comes to power it seems like an isolated event, initially people think he is a liberal democrat, then just an isolated figure, but then it turns out not to be an anomaly but something that is going to happen all over the world. There are many factors that influence. We can talk about a revival of nationalism, perhaps it never went away. There was a market that these leaders have exploited. They all say what Trump does when he promises to “Make America Great Again.” Putin talks about making Russia great again. Xi of the great rejuvenation. We have passed from a phase in which the leaders seemed ready to abandon nationalism in favor of economic integration to the return of nationalism through the front door.
Has the 2008 crisis, the social networks, been decisive?
Economic shocks matter, because these leaders have a rhetoric of national decline and in the West many people felt their lives had gotten worse and the rhetoric of Trump or Brexit made sense to them. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this age of strong men is the age of the rise of social media. They have adapted to its appeal, because they appeal to emotion, and also bypass the press and its verification of whether something is true or not. Trump is the president of Twitter, like Roosevelt on the radio and Kennedy on TV.
Is the situation a consequence of neoliberal policies?
of economic change. If you want to call neoliberal globalization, maybe yes. A lot of people who didn’t have a degree and used to have a good salary now can’t find jobs like that anymore. No wonder they are upset. It’s not just globalization, it’s also technological change, but it’s not very comforting to tell them there’s nothing to do, and people are looking for alternatives. They believe that things were better in the past. Even today China and India in aggregate are doing well economically, but jobs for new graduates are not that many and unemployment is high. In China there is a certain nostalgia for Mao: there was more sense of a common project in the face of today’s individualistic society. When Xi says we are not going to bring back the communist party but group singing and creating a sense of community, there are people who want it.
He says that today there is a political market for the past. Do we need a new future?
Successful politicians in the 1990s emphasized the future. Clinton wanted to build a bridge to the 21st century. Now a handful of politicians say that everything is going wrong and we have to go back. And this fear of the future is also strong on the left, with climate change. My children’s generation worry about their economic situation, impossible housing, China on the rise. Polls in the UK say that only 19% of young people believe that democracy works. They don’t have confidence that it’s obviously the best system because something isn’t working.
Were you surprised that Putin invaded Ukraine?
I wouldn’t have said it six months earlier. You look back and say: What had we missed? We had forgotten that war has always been central to Putin. He started the second war in Chechnya as soon as he arrived, he invaded Georgia in 2008, annexed Crimea in 2014, intervened in Syria in 2015, and perhaps because they have been successful, he is convinced that military power works for him and he makes a big mistake. He is losing the war and badly but he still has the power to climb and I don’t think he will accept defeat. Either he is replaced or there is a diplomatic agreement that he and Ukraine can accept, which is difficult.
He says the invasion of Ukraine could be a global turning point if Putin suffers a defeat.
I was a bit optimistic, but it will help. Putin is the archetype of authoritarian leaders, many admire him, including Trump, who days before the invasion said he was a genius, and Xi Jinping, who has said that he is his best friend. Putin failing will not kill off authoritarian leaders, Xi won’t say he’s quitting, but if Putin is miraculously replaced by a more liberal regime, things don’t look so good for Xi. The political atmosphere changes, the West looks a little stronger. Putin and Xi’s narrative is about Western decline and weakness and the inevitability of these societies collapsing, and let’s face it, there is some evidence for that. But if the West manages to overtake Russia, the global narrative changes.
