Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power across Global Politics

Description

In order to truly understand the emergence, endurance, and legacy of autocracy, this volume of engaging essays explores how autocratic power is acquired, exercised, and transferred or abruptly ended through the careers and politics of influential figures in more than 20 countries and six regions. The book looks at both traditional "hard" dictators, such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and more modern "soft" or populist autocrats, who are in the process of transforming once fully democratic countries into autocratic states, including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary. The authors touch on a wide range of autocratic and dictatorial figures in the past and present, including present-day autocrats, such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, military leaders, and democratic leaders with authoritarian aspirations. They analyze the transition of selected autocrats from democratic or benign semi-democratic systems to harsher forms of autocracy, with either quite disastrous or more successful outcomes. An ideal reader for students and scholars, as well as the general public, interested in international affairs, leadership studies, contemporary history and politics, global studies, security studies, economics, psychology, and behavioral studies. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of contributors Introduction: dictators and autocrats: a global phenomenon Abstracts Part I The notorious three 1 Joseph Stalin: autocrat par excellence (1878–1953) 2 Adolf Hitler: from democracy to dictatorship (1889–1945) 3 Mao Zedong: communist Party dictatorship (1893–1976) Part II Pathbreaking autocrats of the twentieth century 4 Fidel Castro: from grassroots dictatorship to Communist autocracy (1926–2016) 5 Augusto Pinochet: the emergence of one-man rule in Chile (1915–2006) 6 Robert Mugabe: ruthless authoritarian who preferred democratic clothing (1924–2019) 7 Joseph Kabila: the “Raïs” of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (born 1971) 8 Hugo Chavez: was he an autocrat? (1954–2013) 9 Lee Kuan Yew: autocracy, elections, and capitalism (1923–2015) Part III Twenty-first-century autocrats: the major powers 10 Vladimir Putin: Russia’s neo-patrimonial façade democracy (born 1952) 11 Xi Jinping: the rise of an authoritarian leader (born 1953) 12 Narendra Modi: elected authoritarian (born 1950) 13 Donald J. Trump: the authoritarian style in American politics (born 1946) Part IV Twenty-first-century autocrats: other influential autocrats 14 Ali Hosseini Khamenei: routinizing revolution in Iran (born 1939) 15 The Assad Dynasty: quo vadis Damascus? (Hafiz: 1930–2000; Bashar: born 1965) 16 Kim Jong Un: rise to power and leadership style (born 1984) 17 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: the one and only Egyptian dictator (born 1954) 18 Prayuth Chan-o-Cha: from the barracks to the ballot box (born 1954) 19 Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (a.k.a. “MBS”): king in all but name (born 1985) 20 Viktor Orbán and János Kádár: a post-Communist and a Communist autocrat in Hungary. A comparative analysis (Kádár: 1912–1989; Orbán: born 1963) 21 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: from “illiberal democracy” to electoral authoritarianism (born 1953) 22 Rodrigo Duterte: macho populism and authoritarian practice (born 1945) 23 Jair Bolsonaro: beyond the pale, above the fray (born 1955) Index