The Age Of The Strongmen...

Some call it "populism", or "people power". Others prefer edgier terms, such as, "authoritarianism", "totalitarianism" or "emerging fascism." Around the globe, people are turning to populist leaders who promise promise to wrest control from "faceless global market forces" to privilege, and to re-empower the nation-state. Some say that's because we are living in the age of anxiety fueled by technology, joblessness, immigrants, and fear of globalization. Others refer to an "us-versus-them" duality that encourages division as a common populist strategy: it was a part of the Brexit debate, as well as the votes on the right and left from the U.S. to Mexico, to the key European states, and most notably, to the recent elections in Brazil...

... As crowds cheered, flags waved, the national colors flew on the first day of this January, Jair Bolsonaro, a nationalist and populist, known as "Trump of the Tropics", sworn in as the 42nd president of Brazil. And with that, the world's 5th most populist - and Latin America's largest - nation just joined the club of states led today by some brand of populist, authoritarian leader. A former member of the Brazilian military, who had a sit in The National Congress for nearly three decades, Bolsonaro somehow managed to brand himself as an "outsider" - in part perhaps, using social media very intelligently, in part with his controversial comments against media, minorities, and many others that local observers deem "pretty striking".

"Our democracy is at severe risks right now," a Brasilia-based journalist and former diplomat, told me while tuning into Bolsonaro's speech at the inauguration ceremony. "The problem is that when our voters feel that they have a little choice but to turn to someone who has been so explicitly authoritarian, they are putting the whole democratic system on the operating table," she added. Bolsonaro, in her words, was "not just promising to push the country towards the far-Right, he may also dramatically change Brazil's domestic and foreign policy."

Brazil is not the only country where populism with a decidedly authoritarian bent is seemingly back - and it's fundamentally changing the country's political landscape - by one measure, more than half the world now is ruled by strongmen whose only concern is their own grasp on the power. Across Europe, populist movements have been on the rise for a while now. In Italy, Hungary, Germany, even Sweden... So far, many of these populist movements have been reportedly shaped by racist and xenophobic rhetoric. But what if racism and hatred aren't necessarily driving forces of populism which, in itself, is actually a logical response to decades of frustration with the political establishment? In other words, what is actually driving the rise of the populist strongmen? As one Brazilian activist puts it, "if this [election of Bolsonaro] feels like the right way, or the only way, to get things done, should we start worrying that the strongmen might use their power against us?"

"No," insists one Bolsonaro voter, whom I spoke with in Brasilia. "Although we've seen a rising despair about democracy in Brazil, there is no majority sentiment in this new government to end democracy, and that's certainly not what we voted for... We just wanted decisive action to reform the system and that's what [Bolsonaro] is going to focus on." The democratic world, he added, has got "a lot of work to do to repair and reform democracy to make it work better, smoother, and more responsively."

In the recent years the world has also witnessed waves of pro-democracy protests - most recently, and perhaps most dramatically, during the Arab Spring - but all that seems to have come to a screeching halt. Just a decade ago some places - like Turkey, Hungary - that were considered bright-spots in terms of democratic developments are now very much a part of the trend of backsliding into autocracy. One wonders how much of the swing towards populism is a kind of nostalgia for a time when strong men had all the answers? If that's the case, it would be facile to say there are no dangers facing those nations in a long run and here is why:

In human history demagogues have always ridden to power by playing on fear in difficult times. And one of the characteristic elements of the age of the strongmen is that they often claim they "alone" can stand for the people, and anybody who disagrees with them isn't just wrong and doesn't just need to be defeated politically, but they are "deeply illegitimate" and are "traitors." With that in mind, once populists take power, they tend to disregard checks and balances, and to trample on the rights of the opposition and to suppress press freedom, precisely because they think that anybody who disagrees with them is illegitimate.

In the meantime, if there one thing we do know about authoritarian regimes it is that when they collapse, they collapse spectacularly... with tremendous negative spillover effects. In today's Latin America for instance, another country - Venezuela is on the brink. The only question is the brink of what: a civil war, more dictatorship, or even worse - military intervention? Whatever path will be followed in Venezuela or in Bolsonaro's Brazil, it all in the end comes down to politics, and it always involves alternatives... The power of the people is always greater than people in power. As a former Brazilian diplomat puts it, if democracy is going to counter the temptations of authoritarian demagoguery, they have to put forward alternatives. It, however, takes creative responsible and resourceful democratic leadership to provide the alternative.