Francis Fukuyama recently shared a compelling piece titled “The Myth of Authoritarian Efficiency” by political scientists Jørgen Møller and Svend-Erik Skaaning (Aarhus University / V-Dem project).
The article dismantles the popular notion that authoritarian regimes—particularly China—are simply better at “getting things done.” Drawing on historical data and comparative evidence, the authors argue that democracies consistently outperform autocracies over the long term across critical domains:
• Military effectiveness: Democracies have won more than 80% of wars since 1815. Greater legitimacy enables citizens to make greater sacrifices, and democratic alliances prove more durable.
• Economic performance: While autocracies can drive catch-up growth to middle-income levels, they struggle to transition to innovation-driven, knowledge economies that require rule of law, intellectual property protection, and open debate. High-quality democracies show a modest but robust long-run growth advantage.
• Avoiding catastrophe: Autocracies periodically produce large-scale man-made disasters (Mao’s Great Leap Forward, Soviet collectivization). Institutional checks and public scrutiny in democracies make comparable failures rare.
• Crisis management & environment: Transparency, independent science, and accountability lead to better outcomes on pandemics, climate policy, and environmental indicators. China’s zero-COVID flip-flop and overstated economic statistics illustrate the risks of centralized, unaccountable decision-making.
The authors acknowledge democracies can be slow and messy, but emphasize that self-correction mechanisms ultimately make them more resilient and effective than systems that concentrate power without feedback loops.
Francis Fukuyama, author of the landmark book The End of History and the Last Man, continues to spark important conversations about the enduring strengths of liberal democracy in an era of renewed authoritarian confidence.
Full article (highly recommended):
https://t.co/rdLYptPLnY
What’s your take—do you see evidence of this “myth” playing out in emerging markets or great-power competition today?

Democracy #Geopolitics #China #EmergingMarkets #InternationalRelations #PoliticalEconomy