Bolivia Should Worry Autocrats Everywhere
After the Cold War, it was tempting to believe that when dictatorships ended, democracies were likely to take their place, and that once democratic institutions were in place, they were likely to persist. The truth is less upbeat.
Revolts against established or aspiring dictators ushered in democratic institutions in countries from the Czech Republic to Slovenia. Elsewhere, however, revolts against autocratic leaders failed, proved short-lived, or helped a new autocrat step into the power vacuum. In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko built a post-communist dictatorship on the symbolic rubble of the old regime. In Russia, a brittle democracy led by a corrupt and unstable leader ultimately gave way to a repressive dictatorship under the diktat of Vladimir Putin. And
