For all the concern over authoritarianism’s advance, the competence of governance may be what determines the next chapter in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship.
About the Author
William J. Dobson is the Journal of Democracy’s coeditor and author of the book The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (2012).
The first half of President Rodrigo Duterte’s single six-year term saw steady erosion of legal barriers against abuses of power, typified by a bloody and extralegal “drug war.” Yet in…