"Elections Without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism"

What struck me most about Levitsky and Way's characterization of competitive authoritarianism was how it seems to be democracy tainted by institutionalized corruption. The arenas of democratic contestation present in real democracies exist under competitive authoritarian regimes, and ostensibly/technically they operate as they should, but all four arenas--electoral, legislative, judicial, and media--are undermined by the incumbent regime's scheming and ruthless manipulation in their desperate attempts to stay in power. It made me wonder, then, about how preferable this regime type would be in comparison to the two extremes of which it is roughly the average. Competitive authoritarianism seems rooted in and indeed defined by the dishonest power-hungriness of the people/party currently in power, and I don't think it can be argued that this is only a necessary evil on the way to democracy. One of Levitsky and Way's main points was that for too long we have viewed these competitive authoritarian regimes that emerged after the Cold War amidst widespread loss of patience for and acceptance of authoritarian regimes throughout the world--now it has been 18 years since 1990 and the majority of states in the world are still non-democratic, and since close to zero progress has been made by these competitive authoritarian regimes down the path to democracy, it's time to consider competitive authoritarianism as a regime type in its own right and not a set of training wheels on the bicycle of democracy. While competitive authoritarianism is surely an improvement from full-blown authoritarianism, given the legality and occasional success of opposition movements, it is by no means an ideal state of affairs, and it should not be accepted as a satisfactory regime type by Western leaders and states who seek to promote and spread democracy throughout the world.