The Hated and the Dead

Suharto led Indonesia between 1967 and 1998. Nicknamed 'The Smiling General', Suharto was a wily and calculating military leader, but with a ferocity and ambivalence towards violence unmatched by any previous subject on the podcast; it is estimated that over one million Indonesians died in the 1965-66 killings that brought Suharto to power. That said, Suharto's development projects...

Rodrigo Duterte has been president of the Philippines since 2016. He is a divisive figure both domestically and internationally, having irritated the US and international human rights groups for his (very) hardline attitude towards drugs. Having announced his retirement from politics, he has also set up one of the strangest elections I've ever seen, currently being fought between Duterte&apos...

Neil Kinnock served as a leader of the UK Labour Party between 1983 and 1992. The longest-serving leader of the Opposition in British history, Kinnock never served as prime minister. Whilst less divisive than many of my other subjects, Kinnock was one of the most important leaders of the 1980s, one of the most polarised decades in recent British political history; some studies actually show that B...

In this very short episode, I give you a quick update on the podcast, and explain a slightly unorthodox upcoming episode... enjoy!

Alexander Lukashenko has been the president of the Eastern European country of Belarus since 1994. Since 2020, he has come under increasing pressure from Western powers to resign, after he refused to accept his defeat in that year's national elections. However, Vladimir Putin's influence in Belarus casts a longer shadow than the 5'6" Russian president does in real life, and Luk...

Boris Yeltsin served as President of the Russian Federation from 1991 until 1999. Yeltsin's political career spans the decline and fall of the Soviet Union,  the end of the Cold War, and Russia's difficult transition to capitalism and democracy in the 1990s. Though initially very popular in Russia, his approval rating reached single digits by the time of his resignation, which led the wa...

Muammar Gaddafi was the "Brotherly Leader" of Libya from 1969 until 2011. Few figures in Middle Eastern politics court as much controversy as the highly eccentric Gaddafi, with his idiosyncratic style having been parodied by actors, and mimicked by other politicians. Gaddafi's long rule can be seen as an agonising decline from popular anti-imperialist "saviour" of Libyans...

Antonio Salazar was the leader of Portugal from 1932 until 1968. Though a conservative dictator, Salazar was suspicious of the populist and fascist tactics used by contemporaries Hitler and Mussolini, instead opting to build a highly effective non-political state. The relatively benign dictatorship that Salazar created, together with the instability of the democracy that has taken its place, means...

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been the leader of the Turkish Republic since 2003, either as prime minister or president. Erdoğan's erratic tendencies have made him one of the most talked-about leaders in the world, and a headache for the US, the EU, and NATO. However, it is within his own country where Erdoğan's leadership is most polarising, with his Islamist outlook cutting against the trad...

Indira Gandhi served as prime minister of India twice between 1966 and her assassination in 1984. Gandhi is best remembered for the Emergency (1975-1977), a period during which she effectively suspended Indian democracy. My guest for this conversation is Dr Vernon Hewitt, formerly of the University of Bristol, who wrote his PhD on the Emergency. 

Silvio Berlusconi served as Italian prime minister three times between 1994 and 2011. Love him or loathe him, his political skill cannot be denied. In an era of populism, his often dangerous tactics also need to be recognised and understood. My guest for this conversation is Professor John Foot of the University of Bristol (@Footymac on Twitter).