Last summer when Vladimir Putin boldly declared his interest in building a new global economic “architecture,” eschewing the influence of institutions such as the World Bank and Bretton Woods system, few in the West could predict how exactly Russia would go about doing this. The rapid rise of a new, powerful energy alliance, including countries like Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Bolivia, appears to be the central instrument by which Moscow hopes to accomplish their lofty goal, and already we have seen the potential for damage posed by closer relationships between authoritarian states. Hugo Banzer Suárez (right), an authoritarian populist president of Bolivia photographed with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1975. What leads voters in nominally democratic countries like Russia and Bolivia to support authoritarians?