For all the talk of decolonialization, many Third World countries that became independent set up regulatory regimes that mirrored their former "mother" country.
The current political polarization in the USA is not a "threat" to "our democracy." Instead, democracy as we know it is the prime reason for the polarization.
We are told that economic growth goes along with liberal democracy. But social institutions play an important role that transcends the political order.
After all the romanticizing about democracy and voting, in the end, we are still left with the sad fact that the worst always find their way to the top.
Trying to understand the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the exclusive viewpoint of modern Western democracy is to ignore the long history of authoritarian leadership in Russia.
Today, progressives govern by the law of good intentions, and when government has good intentions, the results, no matter how disastrous, don't matter.
It has been more than fifty years since Egyptian strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser died, but his unfortunate legacy of imposing socialism on Egypt still harms the nation and its economy.
In many ways, the liberal democracy that had its roots in nineteenth-century liberalism seems to have run its course. Can we revive it, or does something more authoritarian take its place?