And the Award for Best Dictator Goes To…

The resignation of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has prompted a flurry of writing about other Middle Eastern monarchies and dictatorships, past and present. Indeed, across the region people are discussing, debating and in some cases taking to the press and the streets to protest oppressive forms of government.

On the other hand, the seemingly unlikely fall of Mr. Mubarak has also been cause for reflection on exactly how effective he was as an authoritarian leader. Thirty years in power in a country of nearly 80 million people is no small feat, especially when bordered on one side by a volatile Israel and Palestine, a disintegrating Sudan to the south and an unpredictable Libya to the west.

Of course, authoritarian and undemocratic leadership is not restricted to Egypt or the Middle East. Traditional and hereditary government enforced by threats of violence or exile has long been a facet of human political and social organization. Especially during times when stability and internal coherence were (often rightly) deemed to be the keys to survival of a group, nation or tribe, strong central leadership prevented dissent or personal ambition from endangering the whole group.

In today’s world, however, stability and progress are often invoked as rationales for longstanding and dictatorial regimes regardless of their applicability. In some cases driven by personal ambition, and other times by genuine belief in one’s ability to be the transformational leader needed by his or her people (regardless of the reality), dictators today range from the iron-fisted Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, who has ruled since 1979, to Frank Bainimarama, the controversial Fijian naval officer who took power in his country in a 2006 coup, but has since battled with the national courts over its legality.

Even deciding who is a dictator and who is not is a tricky business. Much like the distinction between “freedom fighter” and “terrorist,” the difference between a “dictator” and a “stable and progressive monarchy” is a matter of perspective. Many American analysts are quick to call Fidel Castro and Ali Khamenei dictators of the worst kind, while leaving the monarchies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia alone and ignoring “friendly” oil-producing West African dictators in Angola, Gabon or Equatorial Guinea.

With that said, I would like to introduce you to the Dictator Index, a measure of the relative effectiveness of national leaders with authoritarian tendencies in the last 40 years or so. The initial list of candidates for Best Dictator ran more than 70 people long, making it necessary to set a few cutoffs for inclusion. Only people who were in power since 1970 have been included (some began their rule before that), and only leaders who managed to stay in power for 15 or more years have made it to the final round of evaluation. Apparently, if you want to be counted among the elite of authoritarian rulers, you must put in a good 20 or 30 years – no small feat, indeed.

The 34 potential dictators have been measured in six main categories that define well-executed despotic rule. First, as alluded to by the cliché, “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” the number of years a leader was in possession of national power is an important factor. Second, allowing elections and/or democratic processes is ranked on a 0 to 5 scale, with 5 being free and fair elections and 0 being absolutely none. Candidates, naturally, receive Dictator Index points for being less democratic. Similarly, tolerance of opposition or the publication of opposition ideas is ranked on a 0 to 5 scale, with 0 being no tolerance of opposition, and 5 being a free and influential opposition. The fourth factor is the level of development that the country achieved during the rule of the dictator, as compared with its local region and/or comparable countries. This is measured using the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index (HDI) and where those data are not available, Life Expectancy at birth as measured by the United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs. Fifth, the candidates are measured on how much wealth they were able to expropriate through their charge as a national leader. Again, this is based on a 0 to 5 ranking, using lifestyle and broad brackets of proven personal wealth. It is quite challenging to get exact figures on each person, however we can clearly differentiate between the wealth of a Mobutu Sese Seko from Congo, who embezzled every cent he possibly could, and Kim Il Sung of North Korea, who while rather unbalanced, did not actually embezzle that much. Lastly, the Dictator Index takes into account the size of each country, assuming that it is generally harder keep hold of a huge country like Egypt or Indonesia than a small principality like Brunei or Swaziland.

So without further ado, I am pleased to present the award of Best Modern Dictator to Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, who topped a very competitive list of authoritarians.

In second place is the controversial Francisco Franco of Spain who led a highly oppressive regime for 39 years, though presided over a post-World War II economic boom that was called the Spanish Miracle. Third place is occupied by the Sultan of oil-rich Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, who has overseen two decades of economic expansion, though at the price of political and social freedoms in the small kingdom. Kim Il Sung, the father of the current North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, led a highly oppressive regime for 45 years, which made up for his relatively low accumulated wealth and the stagnant economic and health situation that existed during this rule. Rounding out the Top 5 is the enormously wealthy King Fahd bin Saud of Saudi Arabia, who, like his brothers before him, allows virtually no opposition to his rule and certainly no elections.

The rest of the Top 10 are not surprising, with Saddam Hussein, Mobuto Sese Seko, Hosni Mubarak, Hafez al-Asad and Fidel Castro – who led the list with 47 years in power – taking positions 6 through 10 on the index.

Surprise underperformers on the index include Robert Mugabe, who while having spent more than 30 years at the helm in Zimbabwe, has actually overseen several contested elections, has a fairly active opposition, and has seen a crash of all the development indicators of health and education in the country. Similarly, Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, while maintaining reputations of being men of iron, did indeed allow elections or referenda that strongly challenged their rule (Pinochet was actually removed from power democratically, and al-Bashir is within weeks of losing the southern portion of Sudan to independence).

In conclusion, while there are many oppressive governments around the world, there is only one Qaddafi, who manages to mix Leader for Life status, an enormous quantity of oil wealth, an impressive wardrobe and just enough craziness to keep his enemies and opponents on their toes.
Below the break is a full table that includes the ratings for each of the six factors.