Harvard Fairbank Center For Chinese Studies

As the role of “strongman” leaders on the world stage appears to be on the rise, this panel examines “strongman politics” in a comparative context. In May 2018, Time Magazine proclaimed in an article that “The ‘Strongmen Era’ Is Here” (Time, May 3, 2018). Highlighting Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping’s tightening authoritarianism in Russia and China, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Rodrigo Duterte, and Viktor Orbán’s undermining of democratic norms in Turkey, the Philippines, and Hungary, it certainly appears that Huntington’s post-Cold War “third wave” of democratization is witnessing a strongman-inspired reversal. But does this entail a new “era” of authoritarianism advance as the United States rhetorically withdraws from its global leadership role? This panel examines the role of politically-strong male leaders in authoritarian countries in a comparative context. Elsa Clavé, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center, examines the 2016 election of Duterte in the Philippines; Ayşe Kadıoğlu, Visiting