Can Democracy’s Breakdown in Asia be Stopped?

It has become, at this point, almost a trope to conclude that global democracy is increasingly imperiled, but there is considerable evidence backing this theory. In response to the global threats to democracy, some foreign policy analysts and government officials have begun to suggest that the United States and other democracies are entering a Cold War–style competition against autocracy, in its many modern forms. While autocracy—illiberal populism of both the right and the left, military dictatorship, major autocratic powers like China—is clearly on the rise globally and in Asia, a Cold War–style, grand ideological campaign against authoritarianism in general is unlikely to halt democracy’s global regression. For more on democracy’s slide in Asia, and how states should respond, see my new feature in the Diplomat.