[tradewarsonlyn]

Is someone taking bets on whether this will happen? I would happily wager real $ against this wildly cultivated opinion. Autocratic, authoritarian regimes will never command global acceptance over democracy. I have that much belief in humanity.

[pasabagi]

I'm also pretty optimistic about democracy. The problem with autocracies is that while any given dictator can be dynamic and capable, and the administration can work well for a while, autocratic regimes tend to stagnate because there are no checks and balances to stop corruption and nepotism.

Also, democracy reduces the amount of violence necessary to keep a state going in tough times. While violence itself isn't a problem in strictly pragmatic terms, it does create a sort of moral malaise that leads to a dispirited, cynical and corrupt governmental culture, that ultimately leads to regime instability.

People often forget that autocracy is what democracy replaced - and the autocracies were replaced not just because they were bad in a moral sense, but that they were also badly run, dysfunctional, and uncompetitive.

[secfirstmd]

I'm inclined to agree. There is a thesis, I think it's Samuel Huntington, that democracy moves in waves, two steps forward and one backwards. Right now we are in a backward phase from the perception of the West.

Having said that I am fortunate enough to spend a lot of working with democracy activists in the rest of the world and my sense is that there is an ever increasing desire for that, just look at the small pockets of increasing hope in Asia and Africa.