National Journal writer Jonathan Rauch's article, "Export Security, Not Democracy" uses Larry Diamond's expertise to make a somewhat pessimistic argument on the prospect of democracy promotion. The article states:

"In his new book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, looks at freedom in 23 'strategic swing states,' countries outside the industrialized West with large populations or economies. More than half, he finds, have either remained firmly authoritarian or degenerated politically. 'We have entered a period of global democratic recession,' he writes, 'with the swing states as harbingers of a possible broader downturn.'"

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