Authoritarianism Goes Global: Countering Democratic Norms

Issue Date July 2015
Volume 26
Issue 3
Page Numbers 49-63
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Over the past decade, the international backlash against liberal democracy has grown and gathered momentum. Authoritarians have experimented with and refined a number of new tools, practices, and institutions that are meant to shield their regimes from external criticism and to erode the norms that inform and underlie the liberal international political order. These global political changes and systemic shifts have produced new counternorms that privilege state security, civilizational diversity, and traditional values over liberal democracy. The effects of these changes are most visible in the narrower political space that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are facing, the shifting purposes that regional organizations are embracing, and the rising influence of non-Western powers as international patrons.

About the Author

Alexander Cooley is director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College.

View all work by Alexander Cooley