The authors use case studies of individual countries to lay the foundation for a systematic comparison that illuminates the key dynamics of a novel political form. By analyzing each regime's response to the Covid-19 pandemic further light is shed on their methods in a time of crisis. The book closes by considering the Trump presidency, and how we can understand these leaders by comparison to their pronounced counterpart in the Global North—and vice-versa. More than a mere collection of texts commissioned from specialists, is the result of a two-year-long collective endeavor by an international taskforce assembled to respond to a global phenomenon of far reaching significance.