Another way to think about the risk is not just the current existing authoritarian regimes (e.g. China, Russia, DPRK) but also the alliance or transnational movement of right-wing populism, which is bleeding into authoritarianism, seeking power in many Western democracies. Despite being “nationalist”, each country’s movement and leaders often support each other on the world stage and are learning from each other e.g. Bannon pays a support visit to France’s National Front, many American right-wingers see Orban as a model and invite him to CPAC, Le Pen and Orban discussed strategies to undermine EU policies and bolster nationalist agendas.
Perhaps the scenario to watch out for is several of these strongmen/strongwomen coming to power at the same time. Right now the rise of right-wing populism lead by authoritarian-aspiring strongman in small-L liberal democracies has been manageable because their capture of institutional power has been uneven across counties at any point in time, but I wouldn’t rely on that in the future because Establishment and Liberal parties generally have not shown the ability to transform the drivers of polarization and economic populism (some of which gets co-opted for right-wing populism and authoritarianism) i.e. these right-wing and authoritarian parties will continue to increase their vote share over time.
Another way to think about the risk is not just the current existing authoritarian regimes (e.g. China, Russia, DPRK) but also the alliance or transnational movement of right-wing populism, which is bleeding into authoritarianism, seeking power in many Western democracies. Despite being “nationalist”, each country’s movement and leaders often support each other on the world stage and are learning from each other e.g. Bannon pays a support visit to France’s National Front, many American right-wingers see Orban as a model and invite him to CPAC, Le Pen and Orban discussed strategies to undermine EU policies and bolster nationalist agendas.
Perhaps the scenario to watch out for is several of these strongmen/strongwomen coming to power at the same time. Right now the rise of right-wing populism lead by authoritarian-aspiring strongman in small-L liberal democracies has been manageable because their capture of institutional power has been uneven across counties at any point in time, but I wouldn’t rely on that in the future because Establishment and Liberal parties generally have not shown the ability to transform the drivers of polarization and economic populism (some of which gets co-opted for right-wing populism and authoritarianism) i.e. these right-wing and authoritarian parties will continue to increase their vote share over time.