Structural Violence and Unfit Leadership

The concept of structural violence - what the great Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung defined as the “avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs” built into social systems - remains indispensable for understanding how societies perpetuate harm through inequality. Structural violence manifests through disparities in wealth, race, health, and political voice. Yet, it operates dialectically with another social pathology: the rise of unfit leaders.  These two forces, structural violence and unfit leadership, co-produce and reinforce each other in a vicious circle that undermines democracy, justice, and human flourishing.

Wilkinson’s and Pickett’s “The Spirit Level” perhaps outlined for the first time in a major way how structural violence affects a society’s mental health. Ultimately, structural violence creates the social and psychological conditions that make society gravitate toward unfit leaders. When vast populations experience marginalization and alienation, the resulting anger and despair open doors for leaders who promise identity, dominance, and revenge over competence and fairness. This occurs because inequality weakens civic trust and institutional legitimacy, while producing polities more vulnerable to demagoguery and manipulation.

Social systems of high inequality produce enormous stress, even excess premature deaths. In such environments, charismatic yet narcissistic leaders exploit resentment and promise restoration of power to the “forgotten” citizen. This dynamic was prefigured in French West Indian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon’s analysis of postcolonial societies, where colonial structural violence bred both traumatized populations and opportunistic leaders who replicated oppressive systems rather than dismantling them.

The dialectic is reciprocal: Once in power, unfit leaders intensify the structural violence that helped their rise in the first place. They do so by dismantling accountability, diverting resources to the powerful, and legitimizing exclusionary ideologies. German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt described this process as the “banality of evil,” where bureaucratic systems normalize violence through complicity, apathy, and over-technicization. In contemporary settings, such leaders weaken the state’s capacity for equity and use propaganda to redirect blame toward scapegoats rather than unjust structures.

Research has shown that the “dark triad” of narcissistic, Machiavellian, and psychopathic leaders consistently reproduce toxic hierarchies and suppress dissent. In politics, unfit leaders exploit structural divisions by weaponizing group identity, disinformation, and fear. As institutions deteriorate, inequality grows, further alienating citizens and making them susceptible to future demagogues, a recursive pattern of structural decay and leadership dysfunction.

Psychological regression happens especially in times of social stress or existential threat, when populations prefer “parental figures” over egalitarian leaders, valuing strength over wisdom. Structural violence - by generating insecurity, deprivation, and fear - thus shifts collective preferences toward authoritarianism. This process aligns with French sociologist Émile Durkheim’s notion of anomie: When shared moral norms break down, individuals seek order through coercive rather than cooperative authority.

Moreover, the legitimation of unfit leadership is a co-production between rulers and ruled. According to leader-follower psychology research from Vial et al., populations affected by structural violence often embrace norm-violating leaders as symbols of agency or resistance. The normalization of misconduct in leadership thus stems not only from psychopathic deception but also from collective desperation under unjust conditions.

Understanding the dialectic between structural violence and unfit leadership requires acknowledging that repair needs to occur on both ends. Structural violence erodes the psychological foundations of democracy, while unfit leadership institutionalizes those erosions. Reducing inequality through redistributive policy, strengthening civic education, and regulating information systems that diminish public mental health are necessary to weaken the structural side. Fostering accountability and demanding competence, empathy, and service ethics needs to occur on the leadership side, to prevent the rise of personalities who exploit collective wounds.

German-American social critic Herbert Marcuse warned that advanced industrial societies pacify citizens into accepting domination through advertisement and consumerist distraction rather than overt coercion. Today’s global neoliberal order operates similarly: producing alienation, rewarding self-promotion, and valorizing domination. Addressing this requires not only policy reform but an awareness of the larger psychological dynamics at play.

The dialectic between structural violence and unfit leadership reveals a self-reinforcing, vicious circle of inequality and dysfunction. Interrupting this cycle is perhaps one of the most urgent tasks of healing in our time. Societies must mend both their structures and their psyches - rebuilding equity, solidarity, and trust through leadership that serves rather than exploits.