Authoritarianism has been making gains around the world—gains that have often followed apparent democratic openings. The Thai government was just deposed. Egypt’s revolution has come full circle, with another military dictator taking the reigns amid mass arrests and the suppression of the country’s largest opposition movement. Ukraine is in turmoil. Argentina and Turkey drift toward authoritarianism. The European far right is flexing its muscles. China passes over the twenty-fifth anniversary of its greatest crackdown in silence; Bashar Assad continues his, with no end in sight. And power continues to congeal in the Kremlin. The flood of democratization that took place after 1989, in other words, may be long past its high-water mark.
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