The Lost Democracies of the 21st Century

Now in the United States, we’re one of them. Electing a leader who promises to be a “dictator on day one” puts us in the category of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia that willingly brought dictators and would-be dictators to power. One of the features of 21st century democracies that have become dictatorships, as opposed to their 20th century counterparts, is the election of these dictators as opposed to them coming to power in military coups or following protracted civil wars. In the 20th century, only Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Philippines elected their dictators. From 1994 to the present, at least nine countries besides the U.S. elected the person or party that imposed a dictatorship, as defined by the banning or significant crippling of opposition parties and leaders. Only two countries — Honduras and Bolivia — ended their democracies via military coups. And in both those cases, the overthrown government featured a leader seeking to bypass constitutionally-mandated term limits, and the military regime was short-lived.

My “Dirty War House” model that was part of a human rights art exhibit in the Netherlands a year ago. Who would have thought…?

In my blog post from 2016, “Lost Your Democracy? How Long Will It Take to Get It Back?” I examined the lost democracies of the 20th century and found that it took, on average, 21 years for a fully multi-party electoral democracy to return. The countries that got their democracy back soonest were the ones that lost wars. In addition to the Axis Powers in World War II, Argentina is a good example of the “lost war — end of dictatorship” connection. The military regime that took power in a 1976 coup and initiated a campaign of state terror against the populace known as the Dirty War fell in 1983 after unsuccessfully invading the Falkland Islands, a British territory.

Besides having elections as a more common route to power, the post-Communist and 21st century democracies that turned into dictatorships have generally been more successful at maintaining their autocracies — with a few notable exceptions. Those notable exceptions include, of course, the two countries that experienced military coups. They also include two countries, Brazil and the Philippines (both of them 20th century democracies that turned to dictatorship and back to democracy) where leaders promising dictatorships were elected but then lost or gave up power after a single term. After losing to longtime nemesis Luís Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil in 2022, in large part due to his phenomenally corrupt mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, would-be strongman Jair Bolsonaro fomented an attack on the country’s government buildings reminiscent of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington, D.C. Following the defeat of the Brazil insurrection, Bolsonaro was banned from ever holding public office. In the case of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, mentioned in my earlier piece as a would-be dictator of the new century, engaged in a brutal war on drugs and against his political enemies, mainly journalists. Yet health problems that worsened during his six-year term led him to give up power rather than consolidate it. An opposition party led by the son of 20th century dictator Ferdinand Marcos won the presidential election in 2022.

An outstanding film about the immigration crisis in Poland, credited by some with helping to turn voters against the ruling Law and Justice Party.

There remains one more best-case scenario from the current century — Poland. The Law and Justice Party, which took power in 2015, quickly moved to stack the courts, take over independent media, restrict freedom of speech and assembly, and fill nonpartisan civil service positions with party loyalists. The takeover of media and suppression of opposition views was so stark that when I visited Poland in September 2023, just before the national elections, it was hard to tell if anyone was running against the Law and Justice candidates. Nonetheless, the organized opposition to this authoritarian party — a slate known as Civic Coalition — won the election and defeated an attempt by the country’s president (a figurehead position) to nullify the results and reinstall Law and Justice. The defeat of Law and Justice against all odds in fall 2023 occurred in large part because of the party’s draconian anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ laws as well as a scandal related to selling immigration visas to the highest bidders while supporting a cruel anti-immigration stance.

The room in the National Guard headquarters in Lisbon where dictator Marcelo Caetano surrendered to the military on April 25, 1974 and the transition to democracy began.

The remaining dictatorships in my survey — Belarus (1994 – ), Venezuela (1998 – ), Russia (1999 – ), Türkiye (2003 – ), Nicaragua (2007 – ), and Hungary (2010 – ) — were all elected. All of them feature individual strongmen rather than ruling parties like Law and Justice or the Communist parties of the former Soviet bloc and China. Some of those strongmen, notably Erdogan in Türkiye and Ortega in Nicaragua, began as supporters of political pluralism and cracked down later, a pattern similar to the 20th century dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Only one, Venezuela, has experienced succession due to the death of a dictator. We’re waiting for Lukashenko, Putin, Erdogan, Ortega, and Orban to die to see if their dictatorships either sustain themselves, like Maduro after Chávez; gradually weaken, as in Portugal when the less politically-skilled Marcelo Caetano succeeded António Salazar; or transition to democracy, as happened in Spain following Franco’s death. Or else descend into civil war as various factions fight for power.

As the United States teeters on the cusp of dictatorship, we see that we’re not alone in this situation. Several other countries today are facing that transition period, including Israel where an elected Benjamin Netanyahu consolidates his power and drives his liberal opponents out of the country while pursuing a brutal war against the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. After toppling his government due to his complicity in the killing of a journalist investigating his corruption, the voters of Slovakia have brought Robert Fico back to power. He, in turn, has vowed to punish his enemies and move his country closer to neighbor Hungary in terms of the freedoms available to their populations. And in El Salvador, the young would-be autocrat Nayib Bukele (and friend of Donald Trump, Jr.) has bypassed constitutionally-mandated term limits to win a second term. Popular because of his successful war on crime and gangs, Bukele also attempted to use cryptocurrency as a national currency, to economically-ruinous results for which he accepted a bailout. He is now promising not to run for a third term, probably a smart move as the fiscal chickens will likely come home to roost by then. [Update 4/14/25: Now that Bukele has agreed to operate a gulag-style prison system for immigrants captured by the Trump administration, and potentially incarcerated U.S. citizens as well, and shows no sign of leaving power after his term ends, I would put him in the category of dictator serving a foreign dictator.]

Where does that leave us? Some hopeful scenarios, others less so. Leaving aside the U.S., the count in my study is five would-be dictatorships ended or thwarted (after two to eight years in power), six [now seven] dictators still in power (ranging from 14 to 30 years), and three [now two] teetering. The only thing that’s different about the U.S. is the 248-year history of democracy, which in fact means absolutely nothing once it’s gone. Though its history is far shorter, Israel was once a proud democracy. And so was Poland, though I doubt that the 17th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that drew my own ancestors to immigrate there serves as much guidance for the present beyond a source of national pride.

As a fan of history, I don’t have a crystal ball. All I have is the lessons of the past, a flickering flashlight to guide us in the present.