Summary
Strongmen – what accounts for the global rise of authoritarian leaders? Laurie Taylor talks to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, and analyst of the blueprint which autocratic demagogues, from Mussolini to Putin, have followed over the past 100 years. What lessons might be learned to prevent disastrous rule in the future? They're joined by Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King's College, London, whose recent study of Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, examines how a popularly elected leader has pursued Hindu nationalist policies, steering the world's largest democracy towards further ethnic strife and intolerance, according to many observers.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
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| 0:36.7 | This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC and for more details and much, much more about thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:48.0 | Now although there have been millions of words written about the Trump phenomenon, I was enormously pleased to come across a book |
| 0:55.8 | that saw Trump's ascendancy in behavior in office as part of a new emerging |
| 1:02.2 | pattern of authoritarian leadership. That book is entitled |
| 1:06.8 | Strong Men, How They Rise, Why They Succeed, and How They Fall. And the author of Strong Men, Ruth Ben Geert, who's professor of history in Italian |
| 1:16.3 | studies at New York University, ranges across recent history for her examples of how such |
| 1:22.2 | authoritarian rule degrades or destroys democracy. |
| 1:26.7 | Not just Trump but from Mussolini to Hitler, Gaddafi to Pinochet, Perl-Asconey to Erdogan, |
| 1:32.4 | and on, yes yes on to Putin. |
| 1:35.0 | Well Ruth Ben Geat now joins me Ruth you argue that we're living in an age of |
| 1:40.4 | political rulers or strong men who draw on an authoritarian |
| 1:46.0 | playbook. Now how would you characterize their agenda? What are its main |
| 1:50.3 | features? The main agenda of |
| 1:53.4 | authoritarian is to amass and retain as much personal power as possible. |
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