{"id":64764,"date":"2017-07-17T14:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T18:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=64764"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:41","slug":"defeat-tyranny-today-past","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/defeat-tyranny-today-past\/","title":{"rendered":"To defeat tyranny today, look to the past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n To defeat tyranny today, look to the past\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Democracy is under assault. Vladimir Putin\u2019s authoritarianism, ISIS terrorism, the nuclear threat from North Korea and Donald Trump\u2019s populism are just a few examples of the forces challenging our societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerns about immigrants<\/a> from terrorist enclaves helped elect Trump and fuelled Brexit. Amid the Russian scandal that\u2019s engulfed Trump\u2019s presidency, many observers worry about his apparent indifference toward Putin\u2019s actions in Ukraine and the Baltic states, and see a resemblance between their strongman styles. On the other hand, people on the alt-right in Europe, such as Marine Le Pen, openly admire Putin\u2019s authoritarianism and want it for Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my book Tyrants: A History of Power, Injustice and Terror<\/em><\/a>, I delve into how various forms of tyranny, dictatorship and populist demagoguery have a detailed and fascinating history reaching back to ancient Greece. That history can help us sort out what\u2019s happening today \u2014 and even reassure us that there\u2019s reason for hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The birth of tyranny<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Tyranny was first experienced on a large scale by the ancient Greeks \u2014 both from the external threat posed to their small city-states by the mighty Persian empire and from the tendency of their own politics to veer between extremes of tyranny and anarchy. A change in government usually meant the new winners would oppress the previous winners, prosecuting them and seizing their property. Responsible self-government under the rule of law was fragile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Different categories of tyrannies emerged over the ages that have helped to classify and condemn tyranny and other exploitative forms of authority, and to encourage self-governing societies. We can still apply those categories today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

America\u2019s Founding Fathers, in fact, were among those so deeply concerned about avoiding tyranny, either from a single politician or a majority mob, that they developed a system of government to thwart it. Echoing ancient students of politics like Plato and Sallust, Alexander Hamilton warned against<\/a> a potential \u201cCatiline or Caesar\u201d arising in democracy\u2019s midst disguised as the people\u2019s champion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following categories of tyrannies may have some startling parallels to current events:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrants who run their countries like Mafia dons<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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For sheer exploitation, these are the oldest type in their class, and still the most widespread today. Plato would have instantly recognized Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad, for example. The wealth and autocratic power of such tyrants are often accompanied by cruelty and hedonism, from the sexual perversions of Nero to Muammar Gaddafi\u2019s abused female bodyguards<\/a> and rumours of Kim Jong-un<\/a> killing his uncle by setting wild dogs upon him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrants who want acclaim and influence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far back as Alexander the Great, the Tudors and \u201cenlightened despots\u201d like Frederick the Great, we\u2019ve also seen tyrannical autocrats who want to build large, powerful and prosperous states with some benefits for ordinary people, but without sharing power. Putin and the state oligarchy of China are examples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These tyrants are rational actors open to bargaining with foreign adversaries, but not necessarily in the Western manner. Imperial clout in their self-proclaimed spheres of influence, prestige, national honour \u2014 all may mean as much to them as economic prosperity; perhaps more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totalitarian tyrants<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Finally, there are the totalitarians, like the Bolsheviks, the Nazis and Khmer Rouge who want a collectivist utopia, submerging the individual in a monolithic, all-encompassing state. Typically such regimes, going back to the Jacobins and the French Revolution, involve genocide against imagined class or racial enemies, as well as foreign conquest as they endeavour to extend the blessings of the coming world collective to all mankind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s terrorist movements, including ISIS, share similar Utopian aims, now rebranded from Communism and National Socialism to the coming worldwide caliphate, requiring the same genocidal means and imperialistic expansion. Their aims and methods owe far more to Robespierre and Lenin than to genuine Islam. Terrorists are totalitarian tyrants in waiting.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These different kinds of tyrannical or demagogical threats to freedom have been dealt with in different ways \u2014 and will continue to be dealt with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n Emmanuel Macron makes a victory speech in May after beating right-wing populist Marine Le Pen to become French president. (AP Photo\/Thibault Camus)<\/span><\/span>
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Recent election results in France and the Netherlands, and the likely outcome in Germany, prove that Europeans are so far resisting the extreme reaches of populism. That\u2019s despite widespread concerns about the loss of national sovereignty to \u201cglobal elites\u201d \u2014 whether they\u2019re multinational corporations or aspiring supranational authorities such as the United Nations or the European Union\u2019s government in Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, Trump\u2019s populism and nativism have longstanding historical precedents, including Andrew Jackson, Huey Long (dubbed by H.L. Mencken as a \u201cbackwoods Mussolini\u201d<\/a>) and George Wallace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country survived them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Trump will not be able to exert his personal will over all branches of government \u2014 court challenges are clipping his wings. The U.S. political system is working as the Founding Fathers intended, forestalling the tyranny of one branch of government over the others through checks and balances. If Trump is indeed the American \u201cCatiline or Caesar\u201d who so worried Hamilton, he\u2019ll never be able to act on his demagogical inclinations fully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the realm of international relations, where a firewall of sober appointees is so far hemming in Trump, deals can conceivably be reached with the dictators of Russia and China. Unlike genuine totalitarians such as Adolf Hitler or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, these autocrats have no intention of risking having their own societies, and especially their own power, going down in flames over any effort to bring about a totalitarian Utopia via world war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But firmness and steadiness of purpose will be needed in this long-term poker game. Putin must be made to understand that he has no claims on territory belonging to the former Warsaw Pact, despite his wish to avenge Russia\u2019s wounded pride after it lost the Cold War. China must be made to understand that it cannot build naval bases in international waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for today\u2019s totalitarians like ISIS, they will continue to present the gravest challenge to democracy because they don\u2019t want just power, riches or national pride. They want to bring heaven to Earth and force the rest of us to submit to them as masters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasons for hope<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of this is cause for despair, however. As I make clear in my book, the history of tyranny is, after all, also the history of its eventual defeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Great King of Persia was checked at Marathon and Salamis. Napoleon was checked at Waterloo. Hitler was checked on D-Day. The Soviet Empire collapsed inwardly through the combination of tardy and half-hearted attempts at reform and steady pressure from the United States, NATO and from Pope John Paul II. The Polish-born pope strode into the heart of captive Poland and encouraged his countrymen to \u201clive in the truth.\u201d It was clear he meant the truth about everything, including Communist totalitarianism \u2014 not just religious faith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyrants and tyrannies can be frightening from the outside, but are often brittle within. They feature presumed followers who are themselves living in fear of the monsters ruling them, eager to escape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With perseverance and realism, aided and inspired by the history of free government besting its tyrannical foes for thousands of years, democracy can meet the challenge once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Carleton University is a member of this unique digital journalism platform that launched in June 2017 to boost visibility of Canada\u2019s academic faculty and researchers. Interested in writing a piece? Please contact Steven Reid<\/a> or sign up to become an author<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photos provided by The Conversation from various sources.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
\nCarleton Newsroom<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Democracy is under assault. Vladimir Putin\u2019s authoritarianism, ISIS terrorism, the nuclear threat from North Korea and Donald Trump\u2019s populism are just a few examples of the forces challenging our societies. Concerns about immigrants from terrorist enclaves helped elect Trump and fuelled Brexit. Amid the Russian scandal that\u2019s engulfed Trump\u2019s presidency, many observers worry about his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":64781,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[1623],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-64764","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-expert-perspectives"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/64764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/64764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64945,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/64764\/revisions\/64945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=64764"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=64764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}