Seymour Martin Lipset argued that economic development would enlarge the middle class, and that the middle class would support democracy. To what extent will this general proposition prove true of China?
In 2019, the global democratic recession deepened, while protest movements proliferated around the world, fighting largely without leaders or support from major democracies.
Middle Eastern autocracies rely ever more on repression of both their Islamist and secular critics, and therefore increasingly fear that any opening will be uncontrollable. Is there a way out?