The start– and end– for this study is the somewhat contradictory position democracy finds itself in early in the twenty-first century. A quarter-century after the collapse of communism, which signalled the end of the ‘long war’, democracy still remains without peer. Yet the rise of China, combined with Russia's bullish behaviour and the problems of established democracies following the 2008 financial crisis, all point towards the weakening of the West's ideational hegemony. If indeed the post-Cold War era is coming to an end, as some have suggested (Haas 2014), one sign of this might be democracy increasingly playing a less central role as a marker of state legitimacy. The latest Freedom House report ominously warns that ‘acceptance of democracy as the world's dominant form of government– and of an international system built on democratic ideals– is under greater threat than at any point in the last 25 years’ (Freedom House 2015: 1). The liberal interregnum following the end of the Cold War may have come to an end, and the geopolitical environment has certainly become less hospitable for democracy, but this in itself does not portend crisis. On this point, Philippe Schmitter cautions against inflated claims about democracy's decline, suggesting that ‘there is simply no plausible alternative in sight, save for a few models (for example, Chinese meritocracy, Russian neo-Czarism, Arab monarchy, or Islamic theocracy) that are unlikely to appeal far beyond their borders’ (Schmitter 2015: 32). Democracy's standing in the international order has undoubtedly weakened, but it still remains without a clear rival or alternative.

The greater danger to democracy might instead be one of default dominance slowly leading to death by a thousand cuts. One does not need to look very hard to identify serious political, economic and social problems that democracies, new and old, are struggling with. Reflecting on these trends, The Economist recently published an essay entitled ‘What's gone wrong with democracy’ (note the lack of question mark) (Economist 2014b).