Introduction

In recent years, concern about the rise of a globaltide of authoritarianism has increased (Glasius2018; Moghaddam 2019; Diamond 2020). On the onehand, several democracies have been backsliding(Bermeo 2016), with leaders such as Erdogan inTurkey, Duterte in the Philippines, Orbán in Hungaryand Modi in India regularly branded ‘authoritarian’.Likewise, the deterioration of democraticinstitutions affects other Western countries with along track record of upholding basic freedoms andrights, like the United States (Freedom House2020a). On the other hand, the Middle East and NorthAfrica (MENA), which still accounts for asignificant geographical concentration ofauthoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes, haslargely circumvented attempts at democratisation inthe last decade. In 2010–11, the much-criticiseddemocratisation studies came back onto the agenda ofscholars and policymakers for a time, challenginglong-dominant assumptions of Arab authoritarian‘exceptionalism’. Yet, after only a few months,possibilities for democratic change seemed far moreremote, and Tunisia remains the only democraticsuccess in the region, though President Kais Saied'spower grab in summer 2021 is challenging this.

Authoritarian drifting in established democracies andauthoritarian resilience are two distinct phenomena.However, a practice perspective is an important andunder-appreciated lens of analysis through which tolook at new developments in both cases. This is keyto examining what authoritarianism may look like indemocratic settings, as well as in those contextswhere democracy has not yet taken root. Severalfactors may account for this lack of analysis. Sofar as democracies are concerned, Glasius (2018)points out at least three possible explanations:firstly, the fact that ‘authoritarianism’ is usuallyconceived in negative terms as a ‘shortfall ofdemocracy without a definition in its own’ with therisk of unhelpfully stretching the term; secondly,the overemphasis on electoral malpractice, so thatit overshadows other dimensions of the ‘quality’ ofdemocracy; and, thirdly, the almost exclusivevantage point of the nation-state level of enquiry,which dismisses toutcourt the role played by globalisation.As Topak et al. recall in the introduction to thisvolume, when it comes to portraying resilientauthoritarian regimes, scholars privilegedstructural explanations drawing attention to factorslike the legacies of deinstitutionalisation andidentitarian ties (Heydemann 2016),rent-distribution mechanisms and elite co-optation(Brynen et al. 2013), foreign alliances (Yom andGause 2012) and brute coercion (Bellin 2012).