Democracy is in trouble. Barack Obama has become an “if only” president – he would love to fix America’s finances, tighten controls on gun ownership and close Guantánamo, but disobliging Republicans keep saying No. On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe’s leaders are enfeebled by economic failure. A populist insurgency has exposed deep flaws in the democratic system. What’s needed is a bracing dose of authoritarian efficiency.

I hear this story almost everywhere. It is told by Chinese officials eager to contrast decisive decision-making in autocratic Beijing with debilitating drift in liberal democracies. Elsewhere, the sorry condition of rich nations gives the lie to neocolonialist claims for the universality of western values.

The narrative is more than misleading. It classifies the pressures faced by states everywhere as a challenge unique to democracies. Even so, echoing notes of despair have crept into the discourse of elected politicians. Leaders lament their powerlessness. They are living, they complain, in an age of anti-politics. Doing the “right thing” is an invitation to voters to turn them out. Whether it is Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy or the UK Independence party in Britain, the wind is behind populists dressed up as patriots.