Not for nothing: One of the most pronounced trends in global governance is the rise of elected leaders who undermine democracies from within. Some reason to think this trend is accelerating.

Last year, a very important University of Gothenburg study identified a global “wave of autocratization” – 75 cases of countries backsliding. Disturbingly, most were democracies. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029

One reason this got missed: dictators no longer fit the Bond-villain image we expect. Today’s line-blurring autocrats tend to be bumbling, paranoid, polarizing, but have "mastered the art of subverting electoral standards without breaking their democratic facade completely.”

Crucially, elected leaders who turn autocratic tend to be held up by self-interested political systems that "mimic democratic institutions while gradually eroding their functions.” Few recognize this as explicit democratic erosion until it’s too late.

The datapoint that absolutely stopped me in my tracks: "Very few episodes of autocratization starting in democracies have ever been stopped before countries become autocracies.”

Once backsliding starts – and it often starts small! – it usually goes all the way.