In today’s global culture, where simple models help make sense of so much complexity, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin embody opposing archetypes of national leadership. Like others before them, such icons often have a foil – a yang for a yin – that establishes a stark choice between two alternate worldviews.
That was certainly true in previous periods of political and economic strain. For example, in the aftermath of World War I, with democratic political systems disintegrating, much of the world looked to either Benito Mussolini in Italy or Vladimir Lenin in Russia to determine the future.
In the 1920s, Mussolini convinced many foreign observers that he had devised the optimal way to organise society, one that overcame the anarchy and self-destructiveness inherent in traditional liberalism. Under Mussolini, Italy was still integrated into the world economy, and official corporatism, with its emphasis on the supposed harmony of interests between capital and labour, seemed to many to herald a future without class conflict and pitched political struggle.
In Germany, members of the orthodox nationalist right, as well as many others, admired Mussolini, not least the young Adolf Hitler, who asked for an autographed picture after Il Duce (as Mussolini became known) seized power in 1922. In fact, Hitler used Mussolini’s so-called March on Rome as his model for the Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria in 1923, which he hoped would be a stepping-stone to power throughout Germany.
Mussolini’s fascist internationalism inspired imitators around the world, from Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s Iron Guard in Romania. Even in China, cadets at the Whampoa Military Academy tried to launch a Chinese “Blue Shirts” movement akin to Mussolini’s Blackshirts or Hitler’s paramilitary Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung.
During this period, Mussolini’s foil was Lenin, the fulcrum for the international left. Throughout the world, leftists defined themselves by the degree to which they admired or disapproved of the Soviet leader’s ruthlessness. Like Mussolini, Lenin claimed to be building – by any means necessary – a classless society, where political conflict was a thing of the past.
Today’s leaders are grappling with the politics of globalisation, and in that debate Merkel and Putin – who are less similar in their tactics than Mussolini and Lenin were – represent two paths forward: openness and defensiveness, respectively. In Europe, political leaders define themselves by their relationship to one or the other.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front, who will likely be a candidate in the second-round runoff of next year’s presidential election, has established herself as a foil to Merkel. For Le Pen, Merkel is an empress using the European Union to impose her will on the rest of Europe, and especially on hapless French President François Hollande.
In the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party, takes a similar position. Merkel, he believes, is a greater threat to European peace than Putin.
On the other hand, UK Prime Minister Theresa May seems to be channelling Merkel, at least in her negotiating style. Her first major policy speech largely ignored June’s Brexit referendum, which brought her to power, and promised to push for so-called co-determination – workers’ representation on company boards – which is a crucial part of Germany’s social contract.
Putin and Merkel are fixed compass points not only in Europe. In the United States, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – who has praised Putin for “getting an ‘A’ [in leadership]” – recently lambasted his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as “America’s Merkel,” and then started a Twitter hashtag equating Merkel and Clinton. Like Le Pen and UKIP, Trump has tried to put Merkel’s immigration policy at the centre of political debate.
One obvious interpretation of the Merkel-Putin dichotomy is that it embodies gender archetypes: Merkel favours “feminine” diplomacy and inclusion, whereas Putin favours “masculine” competition and confrontation. Another interpretation is that Putin represents nostalgia – a longing for an idealised past – whereas Merkel stands for hope: a belief that the world can be improved through effective political management.
Putin’s position is apparent in his effort to unify Eurasia around social conservatism, political authoritarianism, and orthodox religion as a nominal arm of the state. His is a barely updated version of nineteenth-century theoretician and czarist adviser Konstantin Pobedonostsev’s three-pronged political prescription: orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality.
Merkel emerged as Putin’s foil and a global icon, incidentally, during the eurozone debt crisis, when she was seen as a rather nationalistic defender of German economic interests, and again in the summer of 2015 when she countered objections to her migration policies by arguing that Germany is “a strong country” that “will manage.”

Of course, this “new” Merkel had always been there. In 2009, she openly rebuked former Pope Benedict for not providing “sufficient clarification” about his decision to rescind a Holocaust-denying bishop’s excommunication; and, in 2007, she insisted on receiving the Dalai Lama, despite official Chinese objections.
Merkel and Putin have emerged as political icons just as globalisation has reached a crossroads. While Trump, channelling Putin, wants an alternative to globalisation, Merkel wants to salvage it with strong leadership, competent management, and a commitment to universal values and human rights.
The 1920s’ global icons inspired calls for violent political change. Today, that kind of language is kept at arm’s length. But the choice between inclusive integration and exclusive disintegration remains with us.— Project Syndicate

Today’s leaders are grappling with the politics of globalisation

*Harold James is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation.