Meet the four autocrats of the apocalypse

Four leaders of great states run the gamut of political authoritarianism.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the least so, though he is clearly is a leader with authoritarian tendencies. A report for the U.S. Congress last august noted "critics… commonly portray Modi as having a ruthless and dictatorial style of governance." But he fairly won a democratic election in a country proud to call itself the world's largest democracy.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now president of Turkey (he was prime minister for 11 years, since 2003) is further down the authoritarian scale: the Financial Times' David Gardner wrote that while he had begun as a champion of democratic institutions and civil rights, by his third electoral victory in 2011 "his tolerance of any challenge to his power had all but evaporated."

Russian President Vladimir Putin is still further down the scale. His squeezing of Russian civil society, his snatching of Crimea and refusal to allow Ukraine to grapple with the tensions within it are the mark of one whom, like Erdogan (a fervent admirer), has thrown aside the liberal protestations with which he began his first administration in 2000.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is at the furthest extreme: he makes no effort to develop democratic practices and institutions in the Western sense: he told senior party members that to adopt "the universal values of the West" would be "a misunderstanding of our reform. Our reform … keeps us moving forward on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics." The Party must, above all, control the military: Xi, like most Chinese Communist leaders, believes the Soviet Union doomed its Party when it lost control of the army.

None of these leaders are declared enemies of the West: they will, in some contexts, share in its projects. Turkey remains a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, though an increasingly detached one, reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia as its Western allies have asked it to do. A December meeting between Erdogan and Putin in Ankara saw the two presidents, much compared, setting aside differences and pledging greater cooperation and trade.

 

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