ABSTRACT
The world has been in a mild but protracted democratic recession since about 2006. Beyond the lack of improvement or modest erosion of global levels of democracy and freedom, there have been several other causes for concern. In the global democracy-promotion community, few actors are paying attention to the growing signs of fragility in the more liberal developing democracies, not to mention the more illiberal ones. A different perspective on the global state of democracy can be gleaned from a focus not on regional or global trends, but on the weightiest emerging-market countries. An important part of the story of global democratic recession has been the deepening of authoritarianism. It is hard to overstate how important the vitality and self-confidence of US democracy has been to the global expansion of democracy during the third wave. Democracy may be receding somewhat in practice, but it is still globally ascendant in peoples' values and aspirations.
