Are dictatorships returning? Revisiting the ‘democratic rollback’ hypothesis

Since 2007 an increasing number of articles have diagnosed ‘freedom in retreat’ and predicted a ‘return to the authoritarian great powers’. Highly distinguished scholars warn against the ‘democratic rollback’, and articles on the resilience of authoritarian regimes have appeared in the best journals of political science. Is the tide of democratization turning, and do we have to expect a new reverse wave of autocratization? This article argues that there is no hard empirical evidence that we are witnessing a trend towards re-autocratization on a global scale. The optimism of the early 1990s of a seemingly irresistible trend towards democracy is partially due to an empirical artefact caused by inappropriate underlying theoretical concepts. The overestimation of human agency and political crafting on the one side and underestimation of structural impediments for democracy on the other side contributed to this optimism, as did the thin concept of ‘electoral democracy’ or teleological speculation about the end of history. Democratic rollback does not seem to be as widespread as is sometimes claimed.