Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy

With democracy in decline, authoritarian governments are staging a comeback around the world.

Over the past decade, illiberal powers have become emboldened and gained influence within the global arena. Leading authoritarian countries--including China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela--have developed new tools and strategies to contain the spread of democracy and challenge the liberal international political order. Meanwhile, the advanced democracies have retreated, failing to respond to the threat posed by the authoritarians.

As undemocratic regimes become more assertive, they are working together to repress civil society while tightening their grip on cyberspace and expanding their reach in international media. These political changes have fostered the emergence of new counternorms--such as the authoritarian subversion of credible election monitoring--that threaten to further erode the global standing of liberal democracy.

In Authoritarianism Goes Global, a distinguished group of contributors present fresh insights on the complicated issues surrounding the authoritarian resurgence and the implications of these systemic shifts for the international order. This collection of essays is critical for advancing our understanding of the emerging challenges to democratic development.

Contributors: Anne Applebaum, Anne-Marie Brady, Alexander Cooley, Javier Corrales, Ron Deibert, Larry Diamond, Patrick Merloe, Abbas Milani, Andrew Nathan, Marc F. Plattner, Peter Pomerantsev, Douglas Rutzen, Lilia Shevtsova, Alex Vatanka, Christopher Walker, and Frederic Wehrey

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he previously directed the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Marc F. Plattner is the vice president for research and studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. Diamond and Plattner are the founding coeditors of the Journal of Democracy, co-chairs of the Research Council of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, and coeditors of Democracy in Decline? Christopher Walker is the executive director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy.