Way, Lucan. "Weaknesses of Autocracy Promotion". Journal of Democracy, Vol.27, No.1 (2015): 64-75.

Way, Lucan. "Weaknesses of Autocracy Promotion". Journal of Democracy, Vol.27, No.1 (2015): 64-75.

• In the past few years a number of scholars have noted a shift not just in growing authoritarian retrenchment, but the development of anti-democratic ideologies actively promoting autocratic systems of government, with the most notable being the 'Putin Doctrine', the form of authoritarian nationalism exported by Russia (64).
• In the past decade autocratic rulers have become more adept at cooperation and technology transfer with other undemocratic regimes. China, Russia, and the Gulf States all pour money into less well entrenched dictators and support their colleagues when their regimes fall. Repressive technologies in one country are replicated in others, as was the case for NGO restrictions in Belarus, social media controls in Egypt, and Russian propaganda channels being spread to other undemocratic regimes (65).
• There are number of factors driving this trend towards increased authoritarianism in the context of a serious decline in the global currency of liberal ideas. The rise of terrorism as a global issue has increased the importance of security relative to issues of liberty, allowing regimes to pursue authoritarian retrenchment under the guise of securitization. Economic decline in the West has weakened the attractiveness of liberal democracy, while growing political isolationalism has reduced the soft power in terms of promoting democratic change (65).
• The success of any of these attempts at autocracy promotion, however, are dubious. While the foreign policy of an authoritarian state can foment instability to spoil democratic transitions or buttress a pre-existing autocratic regime, there is no evidence to suggest that autocracies have actually supported the creation of any other non-democracies (66).
• States rarely democratize, even under conditions of internal turmoil, and most states being supported by other autocracies have structural deficiencies that would make democracy there unlikely even without foreign support (66). Moreover, the instances when foreign states have supported anti-democratic forces against democratic groups have had mixed records, with the taint of 'foreignness' sometimes bolstering democratic mobilization (67, 71-73).
• The author argues that the only real case of a regime being strong encouraged as an autocracy was Belarus, whose strong historic and cultural connections with Russia made it susceptible to foreign influence. However, similar attempts to create pro-Russian regimes in Moldova and Ukraine during the immediate independent period were fruitless (70).
• There are also some major distinctions between democracy promotion and autocracy promotion which make the later far less effective. Primarily, autocrats cannot openly promote autocracy, as most are pretending to preside over democratic states. There is no similar anti-democratic sentiment as existed in the 1930s, only support for faking democratic processes. Furthermore, states like China without any semblance of democracy are not missionary and do not wish to reshape the world by challenging dominant democratic norms (67).
• The West can offer massive amounts of material and financial support to both democratic regimes and dictators, but it also supports the normative values that underpin democracy. No undemocratic regime is in the position to actively promote anti-democratic norms, being limited only to material support for collaborators (68).
• Western government also support democracy as a rule, with the exceptions being the multitude of pro-Western dictators. Even Russia supports regimes that are pro-Russian regardless of their constitution, with autocracy usually being only an afterthought or means of stabilizing a pro-Russian government (68-69). Moreover, Russia does not support autocracy in principle or anti-Russian autocrats, the way the US might tolerate anti-american democrats (69).
• The argument that strong autocratic regimes, like Vladimir Putin in Russia, provide an example which other potential autocrats may wish to emulate is valid, however the danger of this occur is far less than that of the active anti-democratic emulation of the Soviet Union prior to the 1990s, meaning that danger has still declined since the Cold War (74).