The global democratic regression appears well-entrenched, a new Freedom House report suggests, as declines in freedom trumped gains for the fourth consecutive year.
Current trends represent the “longest continuous period of deterioration in the nearly 40-year history of Freedom in the World,” according to the democracy watchdog’s annual assessment of political rights and civil liberties.
The dominant pattern of the last four years “has been one of growing restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of expression and association in authoritarian settings, and a failure to continue democratic progress in previously improving countries due to unchecked corruption and weaknesses in the rule of law.”
But while a “freedom recession” and authoritarian resurgence have emerged as clear trends, they can be reversed, the report contends.
The U.S. and other democracies must confront the authoritarian challenge, it concludes, and political leaders should “make the case to their wary publics about the importance of doing so now, while the balance remains relatively favorable, rather than waiting for a further erosion in the global state of freedom.”
Of 194 countries assessed, 16 experienced gains in freedom, the report notes, citing a “few bright spots” in the Balkans, and “noteworthy gains” in Iraq, Lebanon, Malawi, and Togo.
But Sub-Saharan Africa saw the largest setbacks, with 15 countries registering declines and only 4 making gains:
Nigeria and Kenya, both large and influential states that had demonstrated some democratic improvements in the past, saw continued backsliding. They were joined by a number of other African countries that had earned records of democratic achievement, including Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mozambique.
There has been an increase in the number of Not Free states and a “substantial decline” in the number of electoral democracies, Freedom House research director Arch Puddington told a Washington meeting launching the report. The reversal of albeit tentative reform initiatives in the Middle East was “perhaps the most disturbing development” although deteriorating standards in Central Asia make it the world’s most unfree sub-region.
Institutions of civil society, NGOs and human rights defenders are under sustained assault, not least because they are proliferating in regions lacking a tradition of independent civil society and autocratic regimes perceive them as more credible adversaries than discredited opposition parties, said Puddington.
The survey results were “discouraging and disappointing” to Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, who lamented the “studied behavior of governments who feel there’s no cost” for their abuse of human rights.
Carnegie’s Thomas Carothers, not usually given to optimism, questioned the notion of sustained regression, noting that there are 89 free states today compared to 86 at the decade’s start, and 47 not free states, one fewer than ten years ago.
The report confuses events and ongoing issues with trends, he argued, noting that the weakness of judicial systems, for example, was not a trend but a condition and high levels of Islamist violence in Pakistan should not obscure the degree of democratic progress there. The absence of democratic reform in Kazakhstan represents stasis rather than deterioration.
Similarly, he argued, the report refers to reversals and setbacks in regions, like the Middle East, where there were no serious democratic transitions or reforms to be reversed.
Authoritarian regimes had established “more subtle, sophisticated and corrosive environments” for democratic actors, said Freedom House director Jennifer Windsor. Given the growing restrictions of freedom of association and expression, she argued, the world’s democracies needed a “more comprehensive nuanced strategy” to counter authoritarian trends.
“Governments read signals,” she said, and the Obama administration had initially given the impression that it had downgraded democracy and human rights concerns. While the administration’s rhetorical statements on democracy were encouraging, we have “yet to see the operationalization of recent speeches and commitments,” Windsor said.
The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl, moderating the panel, asked why Iraq – with relatively free and fair elections, a flourishing independent media and genuine political pluralism – was still deemed unfree and placed in the same category as neighboring Syria.
While Arch Puddington suggested that high levels of political violence were responsible for Iraq’s categorization – even if the state was “on the cusp” of improving its status – Carothers questioned why high levels of political violence in Colombia, Pakistan and India, and criminal violence in Mexico, did not affect their standing.
Citing the “growing paranoia of even the largest and most headstrong” of authoritarian powers, the report highlights the growing negative demonstration effect of China.
“No country can compete in this respect with China, which — despite its waxing economic and military prowess — behaves as if it were under siege by its own citizens,” the report notes.
[...] Democratic backsliding and authoritarian diffusion [...]