Book Review: Frantz, E., Kendall-Taylor, A., Wright, J., (2024), The Origins of Elected Strongmen, Oxford University Press

This book reports on a large empirical study on democratic decline. Its major finding seems to be that the real culprit are modern political parties that have become personal fiefdoms of elected leaders who evolve into strongmen in office over time. This is in contrast to growth in political population per se.

This monograph reads more like an empirical based on academic (refereed) article that what we typically find when going through typical books, with lots of propositions, empirical data and statistical tests. As such, the book is not an easy read.

But its relevance seems to be high, perhaps particularly today, with Donald Trump holding the position as President in the US. Many of the findings in this study seem to “fit” what is currently going on in the US (mid-2025).  But there are no examples focusing on Trump’s second presidential term, and only a few from his first term. Instead, there are a number of relevant caselets that focus on Erdogan, Orban, on several African leaders, and so on. These examples made it easier to follow the logic of the book.

It all starts out with a preliminary discussion of what seems to be a true conundrum, namely why so many democratically elected leaders seem to evolve into “strongmen”, be gradually dismantling powers that may have been put in place as “chucks and bonds” (parliamentary, courts, administrative, …). And, as already noted, the authors’ main thesis regarding this is not raising populism nor popularization, but that political parties might become controlled by the leader.

In the book’s major chapter, the authors then discuss what might be considered personalist political parties. The authors point out that a major theme seems to be that such personalized political parties seem to increase over time. Why? There might be particular personal traits with such leaders (presidents, prime ministers). But such personal ambitions are often difficult to detect, particularly since most such leaders seems to declare themselves as custodians of democracy, at least early on in their period in office. It seems clear that personalist politic of parties often win elections. Often this might have to do with the strong financial position that many such parties enjoy. The leader and/or his/her friends are often wealthy! But often more fundamentally the leader seems to articulate clearly a political message that might resonate well among individuals. Also, instead electoral rules are often modified over time. For instance, newly elected leaders may often have the rule for their specific term in office extended, quite often without any time limit.

The authors then test the power of various factors that might support leaders and their personalist parties to gradually undermine democracy. This might have a lot to do with weeding out restraints in incumbent political parties. In personalized parties, there may be less incentives to restrain these leaders, and also less possibility to do so, given that such parties are often only superficially organized. Crucially, the nomination process for governmental and/or juridical positions, including the duration of such appointments, are also often controlled by the new leader. These factors are then tested empirically. Top this reviewed, particularly interesting finding is that personalist parties keep cabinet members on a short leash.

The authors then present several case studies, which all seem to support their main findings – Salvador/Buhele and Hungary/Orban in particular. They came up with measurements regarding these factors that seem to be particularly key when it comes to understanding democratic backsliding (democratic decay; democratic erosion; democratic collapse), and test how these seem to measure when it comes to leader-created political parties versus “normal” political parties. Not surprisingly, democratic erosion and collapse are strongly associated with leader-created political parties. Democratic decay, on the other hand, seems more directly associated with traditional political parties. This might be the case because of gradual diffusion of clear purpose in many established political parties.

The authors also test effects from various types of governmental collapse, such as democratic collapse, military coup collapse, or collapse due to the leader’s power grabs. There seems to be a clear indication that the personalism of the leader matter most when traditional ruling parties dominate. Could it be that traditional ruling parties this might be potentially more harmful to democracy, given that dominant leaders might more easily “swing” the direction of such parties? This data seems to confirm this.

As Madison already argued some 250 years ago, separation of powers within a democracy seems “essential to the preservation of liberty”. The authors identify three areas where separation of power seems essential: the legislation, judiciary and the administrative branch/bureaucracy. These pathways all represent weakening of executive constraints. The empirical findings seem to confirm this.

There I also a social pathway that might weaken democracy. Ruling party personalism may increasingly lean towards accepting anti-democratic behavior. We might increasingly see this today, when it comes to the Republican Party under Trump. Officials, elected and/or appointed, seem to have fears of becoming marginalized, if disagreeing with the President. Two other case studies, namely Erdogan/Turkey and Bolsonaro/Brazil are reporting such dysfunctional effects on democracy from social divergence – “us” versus “them”.

Leaders back by personalist parties typically have such dysfunctional effects on societies. And this tolerance for anti-democratic actions seems to increase over time.

The authors’ analysis of “the strongmen leader phenomenon” seems to be highly relevant, none-the-least since the frequency of such leaders seems to be on the rise, but perhaps even more, for the way we see this playing out in the US today (2025). But as alluded to in the introduction, this may not be so much a function of given strongmen leaders, but much more the personalized partied at hand. This means, for instance, that the “culprit” is much more for Republican Party in the US than the President himself!

How can such party personalization be countered? The empirical findings that are referred to in this book may provide some answers to this. And as the author underscore “more attention must be paid to early, small actions by elected strongmen [with ambitions] to expand their personal influence” (p. 200).

After having read this refreshing book, this reviewer is now convinced that a strongman’s party is relatively much more critical than the strongman him/herself. Trump’s Republican party, Erdogan’s AKP, Bolsonaro’s PSL, Orlan’s Fidesz party, and so on, are very critical! Many of us tend to put a lot of weight on specific personalities. The book’s key message, that the party of strongmen is perhaps even more important, in indeed key. This book is a must read!