In 1813, not long before the end of his reign, Napoleon Bonaparte told the Austrian foreign minister, Count Metternich, the downside of being a strongman. “My reign will not outlast the day I have ceased to be strong and therefore to be feared,” Napoleon said. “Your sovereigns, who were born to the throne, can allow themselves to be defeated 20 times and will always return to their capitals.”

Napoleon knew better than anyone the difficulties of remaining in power forever, particularly if you weren’t born to the throne. Years later, democratic institutions would resolve this problem by making it possible for a defeated leader to return by way of the ballot box. Electoral democracy made clear that the throne is never owned, only leased.

But the spirit of democracy was hardly limited to the idea that the will of the people is expressed through free and fair elections. That rulers should not be encouraged to outstay their welcomes and that their power must always be constrained played an instrumental role in the modern understanding of liberal democracy as well.

But this consensus, forged over centuries, is now being called into question.

Today some of the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries, democracies and non-democracies alike, are fashioning themselves as modern-day emperors. They are concentrating power in their own hands with no plans to leave office in their lifetime. In their view it does not matter whether a country is a democracy or an autocracy; what matters is the quality of its leader. And they have a lot of support: At a time when mistrust of politicians is high, many people see strongman leaders as preferable to a corrupt political establishment.