The role of pandemics and the rise of authoritarianism

The study of history offers many lessons, as do pandemics, and if we look to pandemics of the past. we may begin to see some patterns.  The period of the Spanish Influenza (circa. 1919), that of the Black Death (or bubonic plague) from 1350 to 1450, and more recently the Covid-19 pandemic, were all followed by a significant increase in political authoritarianism.  Trump’s triumph at the polls in America, and the rise of Right everywhere across the globe, can be attributed in some part to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the rise of “fascism” in the early twentieth century cannot be considered apart from the particular additive of the soldier’s experience during the First World War, what was known – in German terms - as the Community of the Front, or Frontsgemeinschaft.  Mussolini called it the “trenchocracy”.[1]  On the other hand, the fact that Trump apparently wants to end (at least some) wars invites once again a liberal constellation of peace and tolerance, which seems uncharacteristic – and yet to be seen.

Returning to my central point, permit me to quote here from an introductory university textbook in order to consider what happened to some Italian city-states following the Black Death:

The political experimentation in the northern Italian city-states can usefully, if only roughly, be divided into two periods: the first (1300-1450) marked by the defense of republicanism, and the second (1450-1550) by the triumph of despotism.  By the end of the twelfth century the city states had adopted a fairly uniform pattern of republican self-government built around the office of chief magistrate.  Elected by the citizens on the basis of a broad franchise, he rules with the advice of two councils – a large public one and a small secret one.  His powers were tightly circumscribed by the constitution; with his term of office restricted ordinarily to six months, he could be removed from government or punished at the end of his tenure.

The city-states not only developed republican institutions; they also devised important theories to defend their liberty and self-government in the face of their external enemies, the papacy and the empire. …

However, given their internal instability and their rivalry, the republicanism of the city-states proved precarious.  During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the republican institutions in one city after another toppled in favor of despotic rule.  Three conditions were responsible for this development.  First, class war between rich merchants and nobles caused one group or the other, or both, to seek a resolution of the crisis by turning to one-man rule.  Second, the economic disasters, famine, and disease of the period from 1350- to 1450 encouraged a drift toward despotism.  The citizenry lost faith in the ability of short-term republican governments to cope with such emergencies and put its trust in long-term, one-man rule.  Third, and perhaps most important, the city-states, in wars with their rivals, had come to rely on mercenary troops.  The leaders of those troops, the notorious condottieri –- unschooled in and owing no loyalty to the republican tradition –- simply seized power during emergencies.[2]

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[1] Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), p. 100.

[2] Marvin Perry, et al., Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society, 6^th ed., (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), p. 303,304.