Revolutions Making World Less Free

As the revolt that started this past winter in Tunisia spread to Egypt, Libya, and beyond, dissidents the world over were looking to the Middle East for inspiration. In China, online activists inspired by the Arab Spring called for a “jasmine revolution.” In Singapore, one of the quietest countries in the world, opposition members called for an “orchid evolution” in the run-up to this month’s national elections. Perhaps as a result, those watching from the West have been positively triumphalist in their predictions. The Middle East uprisings could herald “the greatest advance for human rights and freedom since the end of the cold war,” argued British Foreign Secretary William Hague. Indeed, at no point since the end of the cold war—when Francis Fukuyama penned his famous essay The End of History, positing that liberal democracy was the ultimate destinat