What can be done with regimes that proclaim their devotion to democratic principles but violate them in practice?
About the Author
Václav Havel, a playwright and one of Europe’s most prominent moral and intellectual figures, was a leading dissident during the period of communist rule. He was elected as the first president of postcommunist Czechoslovakia, and later served as president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. From April to June of 2005, he occupied the Kluge Chair for Modern Culture at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
What political consequences can we expect when aging dictators die while in power? A fifth of the world’s autocracies are facing such a possibility, but the evidence shows that this may…