2024: The Year of the Strongman?

Summary: 2024 was a pivotal year of elections across several of the world’s major democracies, from India and Mexico to the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As global attention turned to democracy’s endurance against rising authoritarian tendencies, political scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat offered a concise yet powerful definition of the modern “strongman.” This article reflects on her analysis, highlighting the traits, mechanisms, and behaviours that define 21st-century authoritarian leadership.

Introduction

In 2024, the world witnessed an extraordinary convergence of democratic contests. More than half of the global population was called to vote in what many described as a defining moment for democracy itself. Yet, beneath this democratic exercise lies a recurring question: Are we entering an era of the “strongman”? This article draws on the insights of Ruth Ben-Ghiat, one of the English-speaking world’s foremost authorities on authoritarianism. Her observations shed light on the patterns, rhetoric, and institutional decay that enable modern autocrats to thrive, even within democracies.

2024 the year of elections: India, Mexico, the EU, the UK, the US and dozens of others. Perhaps it is impossible to extrapolate meaningful global trends but in this most crucial of years for democracy's struggle against authoritarian alternatives, I was struck by the recent words of Ruth Ben Ghiat, one of the English-speaking world’s leading experts on authoritarianism.

She was recently asked what is your definition of a 21st century strongman? Here is here answer (and how much of it do you recognise in your own country’s politics):

Authoritarian leaders are those that damage or destroy democracy by using a combination of corruption, violence, propaganda, and exaggerated machismo. A strongman’s personality cult elevates him as both a "man of the people" and a "man above all other men". Authoritarianism is about reorganising government to remove constraints on the leader which in turn allows him to commit crimes with impunity, while exaggerated machismo is essential to present the head of state as omnipotent and infallible.

Strongmen exercise a form of governance known as "personalist rule". Government institutions are organised around the self-preservation of a leader whose private interests prevail or national interests in both domestic and foreign policy; public office therefore becomes a vehicle for personal enrichment (of the leader and his family and cronies).

Personalist rule is obvious in totalitarian and one-party states. But it can also emerge in degraded democracies when a politician manages to exert total control over his party, develop a personality cult, and exert outsize influence over mass media.

Because personalist leaders are always corrupt, they and those close to them usually will be investigated when they come to power in a democracy. In such cases, governance increasingly revolves around their defence. More party and civil services resources will be devoted to exonerating the leader and punishing those who can cause him harm such as judges, prosecutors, opposition politicians, and independent journalists.

Even where investigating a strongman leader is no longer possible, a formidable army of lawyers, trolls, bureaucrats, and others will sustain the leadership cult and watch for any cracks in the armour.

Their impulsive and mercurial personalities will make their cabinets a circus of hirings and firings, with the chaos drowning out sound advice.

Normalising extremism has also been a key facet of personalist rule. Strongmen work hard to condition their people to accept authoritarianism as a superior form of government, and this emotional re-training has proceeded along several vectors. For example, they seek to change perceptions of political violence using mass rallies to market it as necessary and justified. Strongmen also routinely praise their counterparts in other countries while delegitimizing democratic leaders and institutions, from elections, to the courts, to the free press.

Conclusion

Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s analysis highlights how the strongman archetype has adapted to the 21st century. Today’s authoritarians often emerge not from outside the system but from within democratic institutions, using populist appeal, control of information, and manipulation of fear to entrench their power.

As 2024’s global elections revealed, democracy’s survival depends not only on holding votes but also on protecting the norms and institutions that prevent power from becoming personal. The strongman’s rise is not inevitable, but his appeal remains potent wherever democratic fatigue, inequality, and disinformation persist.

Key Points

2024 marked an unprecedented year of global elections across multiple democracies.
Political scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat defines modern strongmen as authoritarian leaders who destroy democracy through corruption, propaganda, violence, and machismo.
“Personalist rule” centralises government institutions around the leader’s personal preservation and enrichment.
Strongmen use personality cults, mass media influence, and institutional capture to erode checks and balances.
Investigations, opposition, and free press are systematically undermined through intimidation and manipulation.
Chaos within governance and the normalisation of extremism serve as tools of control.
The strongman phenomenon shows that authoritarianism can thrive even inside democratic systems when vigilance weakens.