Have the black knights arisen? China's and Russia's support of autocratic regimes

The early decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed both a growing sense of crisis in many of the world's most advanced democracies and an unexpected rise in the confidence and appeal of authoritarian regimes.Footnote1 In the view of some scholars, the two developments are hard to separate. The loss of legitimacy suffered by democracies in the wake of the Iraq invasion, the failed attempts at regime change in the Middle East and the recent global financial crisis have left democracy's defences weakened against an “illiberal challenge” now threatening to tip the “global balance of power between democracy and authoritarianism