Reports of an imminent demise of democracy are wildly exaggerated, assures Moisés Naím, Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Democracy remains by far the most preferred governance system: "In surveys around the world very few people say they would like to live in a system like the ones in Russia or China." The preference for democratic regimes leads to a lot of autocracies worldwide that "masquerade themselves as democracies".
The former trade minister of Venezuela and executive director of the World Bank names Russia and Venezuela as examples for this technique. While in the past the USA was one of the most reliable adversaries of those disguised autocracies, today Naim is not sure if this tradition will continue: "The enthusiasm of Donald Trump to defend democracy and human rights in other countries, like Russia, doesn’t seem to be very pronounced."