Ruth Ben-Ghiat explores authoritarianism in Tanner Talk and faculty panel

What makes a leader authoritarian, and how do they rule?

This central question animates the work of Ruth Ben-Ghiat, professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. Her recent book, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present (W.W. Norton, 2020), identifies the defining features of authoritarianism for the last hundred years:  the arrogation of power by an individual ruler, who creates a personality cult for themselves; control over information and public discourse; use of violence and repression, both to eliminate known adversaries and serve as a deterrent; and the cultivation of nationalism, in which adversaries are opposed through a process of othering.

In Strongmen, she traces these and other traits across 17 authoritarian rulers, from Benito Mussolini to the present, including Jair Bolsonaro, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Narendra Modi, Victor Orbán, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump. Ben-Ghiat has previously studied the political uses of cinema in fascist Italy, including in her book, Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2015). From this work, she brings forward her analysis of the formal, aesthetic, and characterological dimensions of authoritarianism.

In her Tanner Talk on Wednesday, September 18 at the Utah Museum of Fine Art, Ben-Ghiat presented some of her findings which are especially relevant now:  

Conventional politicians usually avoid seeking office while under investigation for possible wrongdoing. They expect journalism and opposition research to hinder their campaigns. In contrast, strongmen are driven to seek public office in such circumstances. For them, it serves as a form of self-defense. Given their desire to concentrate power in themselves and avoid accountability, this strategy makes sense for authoritarian rulers, while baffling democratically inclined politicians. Ben-Ghiat catalogued some strongmen who have used this strategy in recent memory:  Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Silvio Berlusconi.

Gender politics are central to strongmen’s political aspirations, not peripheral. Ben-Ghiat identified three core parts of authoritarian gender politics: First, in authoritarian regimes, institutionalized misogyny seeks to keep women subordinate to both men and to the state, often through natalist policies. Second, strongmen flaunt their personal machismo and suffuse their politics with hyper-masculine displays of themselves, as in Putin’s famous shirtless horseback-riding photos. Third, strongmen mobilize homophobia and opposition to LGBTQ causes, both as displays of their own masculine aggression, and as a form of othering.

Finally, strongmen are reluctant to learn from defeat, nor do they develop successors: “The authoritarian playbook has no chapter on failure.” Instead, authoritarian leaders can outlive the peak of their prestige, and then resort to ever more extreme and risky schemes for holding onto power. Known in political science as “gambling for resurrection,” this trait is evident in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Ben-Ghiat.

In the dialogue after the talk with Jacqueline Sheean (World Languages and Cultures), Ben-Ghiat explained her comparative method in Strongmen, which is organized by authoritarian strategies, rather than by authoritarian rulers themselves, or by left–right ideological distinctions. Authoritarian, in her view, is a more relevant and illuminating category for comparison than totalitarian. Likewise, in reference to figures like Putin or Trump, debates over the applicability of the term fascist can distract from their more salient features.

The next day’s panel discussion, co-hosted by the Hinckley Institute of Politics, was moderated by Jacqueline Sheean. The panelists’ remarks expanded on Ben-Ghiat’s global, comparative synthesis of the essential features of strongmen and their rule:

Yuree Noh (Political Science) analyzed recent developments in women’s rights in Saudi Arabia as an example of “gender washing,” a strategy of using superficial signs of gender progress to conceal an authoritarian status quo. High-profile reforms like allowing women to drive, while positive, have not fundamentally changed the status of women in Saudi society. Instead, the regime violently suppresses political dissent, including activism for women’s rights, as it slowly adopts a few reforms to burnish its international reputation.

Sean Lawson (Communication) discussed the importance of media platforms in authoritarianism. In the 21st century, social media, AI, and targeted advertising enable the spread of disinformation and political warfare through the tactic of “mass personal social engineering.” This tactic is used not only for the purposes of malign persuasion and influence, but also for intimidation and threats, as demonstrated by Russia in Ukraine. These forms of “cyber-enabled political warfare” pose a greater danger than sabotage of information systems themselves. In Lawson’s view, both foreign and domestic actors adopt similar tactics to undermine democratic processes.

Julie Ault (History) suggested that the recent successes of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party demonstrate the potential for democratic backsliding within liberal countries. The concentration of the AfD’s momentum in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) points to the persistence of authoritarianism there compared to former West Germany, which, in Ault’s view, reckoned more thoroughly with its fascist past. Nevertheless, the AfD’s growth throughout Germany underscores the need for continuous efforts to confront historical authoritarian legacies and strengthen democratic values, even in established democracies.

In her remarks, Ben-Ghiat pointed to the authoritarian innovation by Putin and others of the “firehose of falsehood,” which complements or even supplants traditional forms of censorship. The object is to flood public discourse with too many untruths to critique, and thus overwhelm any civic discourse which might effectively challenge the strongman.

In reference to the growth of the AfD in Germany, and to the rise of Trump, Ben-Ghiat stressed the need for gatekeeping the political arena in liberal societies. To avoid democratic backsliding, it is essential to isolate and refuse entry to aspiring strongmen, and to maintain taboos on political violence and hatred. In connection with this idea, she recommended a recent article by Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett, “Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding” in the Journal of Democracy. In their analysis, recent democratic backsliding around the world is not due to the failure of democratic governments to deliver on popular demands, but instead results from the failure to gatekeep political institutions and civic life.

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Evident in Ben-Ghiat’s work and in the remarks from panelists is the importance of global frames of reference for understanding political developments in any one country, including the United States. International comparisons can reveal the defining features of political phenomena like authoritarianism in the 21st century, because they are more often than not already global in nature and scope.

Although it focuses on a carefully defined subset of political leaders, Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s work also attests to the ongoing relevance of character or ethos to political analysis in general. Her comparativist scrutiny of authoritarian leaders across the 20th and 21st centuries explores the fusion of style and substance of political order in the person of the strongman.  However, this comparative attention can also uncover new knowledge of the role of ethos in liberal or democratic political life. In treating the expressions, modes of governance, and policies of regimes as an interconnected system identifiable as an ethos, rather than as separate domains, the limits and aspirations of liberal democracy can come into clearer view. In this way and more, Ben-Ghiat’s work is of wide interest across the humanities and social sciences.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Substack, Lucid, contains more of her recent writing.

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Note: The Tanner Humanities Center neither supports nor opposes the views expressed in its events.