autocrats

In 2005, long before there was an Arab Spring, Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami announced “the autumn of autocrats” and predicted that “the entrenched systems of control in the Arab world are beginning to give way.”

His prediction came to fruition in 2011, when four Arab dictators were toppled and a fifth (in Syria) came under sustained pressure from his subjects. With so many rogue rulers departing in such short order, now is an ideal time to survey the globe for what comes next.