Will you be among those queuing to see Spectre next week? If you are, you don’t need to explain why. It’s simple. It’s the new Bond movie and you like Bond movies.  The tidal wave of publicity – the magazine covers, the posters at bus-stops, the song on the radio – none of it needs to persuade you of the merits of this particular film. It just needs to remind you that the film is out – that “Bond is back” – and its job is done. Effortlessly, the glamour and excitement of the past rubs off on the present.  This week Justin Trudeau, handsome enough to play James Bond, as it happens, was elected as the new prime minister of Canada. He succeeded where his Liberal party had failed four years earlier. Even his greatest admirers do not deny that part of his appeal resides in his last name. He is the son of the former PM Pierre Trudeau and his much younger wife, Margaret, and some of the glamour and excitement of that past era has rubbed off on him.  Related: Trudeau’s bold change pledge was a ruse. But Canada now has a fighting chance | Martin Lukacs  The birth of such a dynasty is new for Canada, but not elsewhere. For the dynasty is the franchise movie of politics: the reliable brand that brought in the crowds before and enjoys an automatic box-office advantage over all rivals. Where Bond, Superman and the Transformers are the titans of cinema, so the Clintons and Bushes, the Gandhis, Kenyattas and now Trudeaus dominate politics around the globe.  It’s one of the more unexpected features of modern democracy. Those who demanded popular self-rule centuries ago partly did so as an explicit rejection of heredity as a qualification for power. Gone would be the ruling families of the ancien regime, replaced by elected representatives of the entire people. The spirit of that earlier age is captured by article 1, section 9, clause 8 of the US constitution: “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.”  She may not be the Duchess of Little Rock, but Hillary Clinton surely belongs to the very nobility America’s founders wanted to prevent. Power and wealth is concentrated in her clan. So it is with the Cuomo family, holders past and present of the governorship of New York, or the Daleys, who held Chicago as tightly as any medieval baron once ruled a fief.  Hillary took a further step towards her destiny this week, thanks to the announcement by vice-president Joe Biden that he will not be a rival for the Democratic nomination, and to a promised congressional grilling on the Benghazi affair that sputtered without catching a spark. Soon, it seems, Clinton will be facing a Republican field that features Rand Paul, inheritor of the libertarian movement galvanised by his father Ron, and Jeb Bush, bidding to be the third US president in his immediate family.  Despite the constitution’s best efforts, the American electorate have been drawn from the start to the de facto nobility formed by its power dynasties. One study found that 11% of those who served in the US Congress between 1789 and 1858 had lawmaker relatives. As late as 1966, the figure stood at 7%. Even today, the son of a senator is 8,500 times more likely to become a senator than the average male of baby-boom age. It turns out the Roosevelts and Kennedys were not exceptions. They were just the ones we had heard of.  And it’s like that everywhere. This week’s feted visitor to Britain, Chinese president Xi Jinping, is the son of the country’s former vice-premier. The democratic world is not much better. In France, the Front National is being fought over like a precious item of family silver by the warring Le Pens, père et fille. The president, François Hollande, has four children with the defeated presidential candidate of 2007, Ségolène Royal. In India, the Gandhis lost last time but are still a fixture on the electoral landscape. In Kenya, the son sits in the presidential chair first occupied by his father.  A likely contender for Peru’s 2016 election is Keiko Fujimori, whose now-jailed father ruled the country until 2000. In Indonesia, rule-by-dynasty is so rife, parliament passed a law in March to bar anyone holding major office within five years of a relative – a kind of genetic cooling-off period. (The law was later thrown out as unconstitutional.) In some regions, a single clan can hold up to a dozen political posts at once. Presumably, when one resigns, they say they’re quitting politics so they can spend less time with their family.  Britain seems less susceptible to the electoral lure of bloodline than most, despite the fact that, or maybe because, we still give heredity a formal place in our constitution – guaranteeing the headship of state to a single family. Nevertheless, after the double Miliband era there is now a junior Kinnock in the Commons, with perhaps a Straw and even a Blair on the way. And the new politics is not immune: John McDonnell’s chief of staff is Seb Corbyn, son of Jeremy.  Not that we should single out politics. The corporate world is similarly the domain of dominant families, whether it’s the Murdoch empire or beleaguered Volkswagen. The Economist recently estimated that 90% of the world’s businesses are family-managed or controlled, with one in three of America’s biggest, billion-dollar firms in family hands. And the media of course is not immune, whether it’s the Russerts of the US, the Lapids of Israel or our very own Dimblebys.  Related: Hillary Clinton deflects conservative jabs in 11-hour House Benghazi hearing  So why does the dynasty live on, even in this supposedly democratic age? The answer is paradoxical. The powerful family may seem an ancient idea but it boasts two ultra-modern features: such clans have a strong brand, essential in cutting through the noise; and they come equipped with rich, intricate networks, dense with connections and social capital. When the time comes, Chelsea Clinton will inherit not just wealth but the mother and father of all Rolodexes.  You can defend dynasty. There’s evidence to suggest such families think more of the long term than other politicians. They want their plans to look good in decades to come, otherwise their children might never succeed them.  And the bias towards established families has arguably helped women reach a pinnacle that might otherwise have remained elusive. Would India have elected a woman who was not Nehru’s daughter? Is it a coincidence that the first woman on the brink of the White House has lived there before?  Of course, everyone should be judged on their individual merits: they should not be disqualified because of their parents. And yet the stubborn grip of dynasticism epitomises social immobility at the highest level, a clustering of one group at the top of the ladder crowding out everyone else. Politics becomes a kind of Shakespearean clashing of clans at court – surely one day, a Clinton will fall in love with a Bush – leaving the country behind.  You can’t legislate to stop this happening, but we can insist on a wider, more fluid, more genuine social mobility. Otherwise politics will become ever more like the cinema – new faces, perhaps, but telling the same old story.
Whether it’s Canada’s new prime minister, the former US first lady or James Bond, increasingly the brand is the defining factor in popular success