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Alan Clark comes to mind, if you can get him into power in the first place, which might be tough.
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Alternate Political Strongmen and Strongwomen
- Thread starter Comisario
- Start date
I think for Northern Ireland the very obvious one is former Vanguard Leader William Craig in a UDI scenario - "Liquidate the Enemy" and all that. George Seawright is a good shout, but he was a bit of a feisty man and I'm not sure I see him lasting long without being overthrown. Down south, a funny prospect would be Conor Cruise O'Brien.
- Location
- Sandford, Gloucestershire
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Seawright was just a bit too much of a loose cannon to reach the top, if even the the early 80s DUP think your too extreme you know you have problems. I could see him as mid ranking brute muscle in a Bill Craig regime though.
Down South Charlie Haughey for the sheer craic. The amount of graft going on would be immense.
I wanted to say Haughey but I felt it would be cheating.
Since I did that rubbish vignette years back on AH.com, I've had this notion of even some mainstream unionist politicians from days gone by as the leaders of national parties in Britain and I think a few of them could fill the role you're thinking of. Imagine, for instance, some situation where Craigavon agreed to a four-county Northern Ireland and the Official Unionists had a more direct relationship with the Conservative Party like the Scottish Unionists.
There's William Craig, as you mention. Basil "The Brush" Brooke (Viscount Brookeborough) might be another.
In the Republic, I feel like there's probably some scenario where you could recast De Valera as a stereotypical strongman leader, but I'm not sure what the facts would be.
- Location
- Das Böse ist immer und überall
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- he/him
I've started working on a list TL where this happens. It's probably ASB, but a centralist, parliamentary Republic of America turned out to be too fun to pass up.
It's not about individual personalities, it's about systems. Orban, Duterte, and Erdogan emerge because they preside over corrupt systems where institutions/rule of law are weak and oligarchs protect their power. I have no doubt that Trump would love to be an Orban or a Duterte, but because of how the American system works he can't even get his approval rating above 42%.
Now it's not hard to imagine a scenario where certain countries that have borderline institutions IOTL have weaker ones, or a scenario where an individual leader is able to turn a borderline system into a strongman system. Most of post-communist Eastern Europe, Spain, Greece, Portugal, or Italy. Even Japan could've easily gone in this direction.
Alternatively you can look at countries that are completely illiberal and imagine a scenario where they adopt a strongman type system instead. A Russia with a less traumatic 90s. Most of Central Asia. Southeast Asia (given that modern Cambodia is basically this IOTL).
Now it's not hard to imagine a scenario where certain countries that have borderline institutions IOTL have weaker ones, or a scenario where an individual leader is able to turn a borderline system into a strongman system. Most of post-communist Eastern Europe, Spain, Greece, Portugal, or Italy. Even Japan could've easily gone in this direction.
Alternatively you can look at countries that are completely illiberal and imagine a scenario where they adopt a strongman type system instead. A Russia with a less traumatic 90s. Most of Central Asia. Southeast Asia (given that modern Cambodia is basically this IOTL).
I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned Stafford Cripps yet. His ideas on using enabling acts to pass legislation and orders in council that wouldn't subsequently be allowed to be discussed or amended by Parliament were incredibly authoritarian.
There's also Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. I don't know enough about him to say whether he might have been inclined that way but IIRC there was talk at one point about drafting him as a stop Hitler candidate, with the Communists on one side and the National Socialists on the other it would be easy enough to find things inching towards an authoritarian state.
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- Das Böse ist immer und überall
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@Comisario, I believe this is where the "a Cripps in every country" theory comes in.
Indeed. Prime examples of Crippses in other countries include Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Henry A. Wallace of the USA, and Östen Undén of Sweden: all men, socialist/social democratic in their political leanings, born in the 1880s to middle- or upper-class families, and with a deep affection for the Soviet Union.
The French socialist party has plenty of them. So has the right. Charles Pasqua is one of them. Jean Claude Gaudin in Marseille. The Guerini brothers. Also Sarkozy.
What is amazing with the town of Marseille is that Gaston Defferre was from the left, Gaudin is from the right, and both are equally corrupt !
What is amazing with the town of Marseille is that Gaston Defferre was from the left, Gaudin is from the right, and both are equally corrupt !
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Never thought of Nehru in those terms before, but it makes perfect sense.
heraclius
Well-known member
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- New Forest, Hampshire, England, UK
The British political system in the C19th and C20th seems too consensual for a 'strongman' leader except in cases of extreme crisis, but an 'electoral dictatorship' by a popular leader by force of character and appeal to the voters is still possible in crises - until their MPs rebel. This is our nearest possibility to the Erdogan/ Orban model.
I think that it's possible that if the Liberals had been more socially radical and hadn't fractured in the early-mid 1920s (crucially, falling behind Labour in the December 1923 election) the Great Depression could have given a final chance to Lloyd George to head a National Government in 1931. He had more coherent and drastic plans to revive the economy (and agriculture) and pump money into creating employment by public works than other politicians, especially Ramsay Macdonald's Labour, and also had large personal funds, a talent for public speaking, and a maverick (and egotistical) personality. If the Liberals had been electorally strong enough in 1924 to lead that year's government, not Labour, and stay in power for 5 years, Asquith (aged 71 and fading) would have been PM for a while but LJ would probably have succeeded him. LJ could then have been Britain's equivalent of FDR if the 1929-31 Labour government had collapsed as in reality and he had been the 'man of the moment' in a severe Depression as Britain's trusted wartime leader from 1916-18. He was also sympathetic to the Nazi economic programme and famously visited Hitler; could he have created a long-term 'economic emergency' government in the 1930s? And preferred to leave Germany alone as Hitler was 'a man he could do business with' rather than re-arm?And been an ally of Edward VIII staying, not tried to get rid of him?
Earlier British history - we did have a regime based on a repressive but 'reformist' Army united by a coherent
(Protestant) ideology in the 1650s, namely Cromwell as Lord Protector plusthe New Model Army. It lasted after Cromwell died in 1658 until the army broke up into feuding and scared civilian moderates plus General Monck brought back Charles II. If Cromwell had died years later (he died aged 58) and/ or his weak son Richard been replaced by his generals, we could have had a second military Lord Protector - General John Lambert, Cromwell's protege? - into the 1670s.
I think that it's possible that if the Liberals had been more socially radical and hadn't fractured in the early-mid 1920s (crucially, falling behind Labour in the December 1923 election) the Great Depression could have given a final chance to Lloyd George to head a National Government in 1931. He had more coherent and drastic plans to revive the economy (and agriculture) and pump money into creating employment by public works than other politicians, especially Ramsay Macdonald's Labour, and also had large personal funds, a talent for public speaking, and a maverick (and egotistical) personality. If the Liberals had been electorally strong enough in 1924 to lead that year's government, not Labour, and stay in power for 5 years, Asquith (aged 71 and fading) would have been PM for a while but LJ would probably have succeeded him. LJ could then have been Britain's equivalent of FDR if the 1929-31 Labour government had collapsed as in reality and he had been the 'man of the moment' in a severe Depression as Britain's trusted wartime leader from 1916-18. He was also sympathetic to the Nazi economic programme and famously visited Hitler; could he have created a long-term 'economic emergency' government in the 1930s? And preferred to leave Germany alone as Hitler was 'a man he could do business with' rather than re-arm?And been an ally of Edward VIII staying, not tried to get rid of him?
Earlier British history - we did have a regime based on a repressive but 'reformist' Army united by a coherent
(Protestant) ideology in the 1650s, namely Cromwell as Lord Protector plusthe New Model Army. It lasted after Cromwell died in 1658 until the army broke up into feuding and scared civilian moderates plus General Monck brought back Charles II. If Cromwell had died years later (he died aged 58) and/ or his weak son Richard been replaced by his generals, we could have had a second military Lord Protector - General John Lambert, Cromwell's protege? - into the 1670s.
I'd hardly describe Nehru as having "a deep affection for the Soviet Union". At first he tried really hard to ally with the US because it was an ex-British colony which became a superpower (connections to India are obvious) and then became non-aligned after the US decided Pakistan would make for a better ally. He criticized the USSR's role in the Hungarian Spring, its 1961 resumption of nuclear testing, and opposed Khrushchev's threats to send "volunteers" to the Congo and Middle East in 1956 and 1958. I'm not sure if Nehru fully understood the idea of realpolitik, but India's alliance with the USSR was always one of convenience. He took Soviet money, though, and was entirely happy with the USSR instructing the Communist Party of India to work within the parliamentary framework.
Ehhhhh, his first visit in 1927 and most of his political prior to the Cold War fits very well with the “deep affection” the others in that list had. That isn’t to say that it was sustained, but it would be false to claim that he didn’t love the transformative power of the Soviets, study the works of Marx and Lenin, and seek to make common cause with them in a fraternal socialist manner for many decades.
That is not to say that his affection lasted his entire life. Certainly, part of the ’Crippses of many countries’ theory is the turn away from the Soviets by the 1950s.
That's pretty fair. Perhaps the biggest reason I would call him "un-Crippsian" is because of his aversion to dictatorship and autocracy, to an extent that some criticism of him has been laid at his "weakness" in this regard.
Subhas Chandra Bose is probably more similar to Cripps, though he was born in the 1890s and had a naive view on Imperial Japan that none of the "Crippses" had (at least by 1931).
I don’t think that Cripps/Wallace/Undén were necessarily all autocrats in their political lives and I would certainly not pin that as a common trait among all ‘Crippses’. Fair enough on his own lack of authoritarianism, though, even if I have read of his sometimes hectoring and bullying personality when dealing with ministers (which clashes with his public persona and subsequent democratic legacy, of course).