Introduction: “Despots Masquerading as Democrats”

Democracy is facing a global crisis. Those who study democracy and democratization, and the organizations which track the state of global democracy have been sounding the alarm for more than a decade that the situation is getting worse. As more and more countries have regressed from democracy in quick succession, it has now become an era of autocrats. This chapter discusses the global state of democracy and explains the features of the current reversal of democracy vis-a-vis the previous two reverse waves—1922–1942 and 1958–1975.