Democracy on decline in world: US, India ‘backsliding’ democracies

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan continues to be rated a weak democracy whereas several democracies have visibly weakened, including the United States which has been for the first time added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the visible deterioration that began during the Trump administration.

The report has been prepared by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance which is based in Stockholm. Known as International IDEA, this organisation has released this report ahead of a US President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy on 9-10 December when leaders of around 100 countries will gather to discuss the challenges facing democracy.

“The Global State of Democracy report is not a wake-up call, it’s an alarm bell. Authoritarianism advances in every corner of the earth. Universal values – the pillars of civilisation that protects the most vulnerable – are under threat,” said Jutta Urpilainen, the European Commissioner for International Partnership in his key-note message on the eve of the report launching.

The number of backsliding democracies has doubled in the past decade, said the report, now accounting for a quarter of the world’s population. This includes established democracies such as the United States, but also EU member states such as Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. “More than two-thirds of the world’s population now lives in backsliding democracies or autocratic regimes. Overall, the number of countries moving in an authoritarian direction in 2020 outnumbered those going in a democratic direction,” according to the report.

The report found that some of “the most worrying” democratic backsliding happened in some of the world’s largest countries, including Brazil and India. The trends towards democratic erosion has “become more acute and worrying” since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report added.

“Some countries, particularly Hungary, India, the Philippines and the USA, have [imposed] measures that amount to democratic violations – that is, measures that were disproportionate, illegal, indefinite or unconnected to the nature of the emergency,” it said.

Pakistan has not received much attention as there were other countries under the spotlight for this year’s report. However, Pakistan has been rated as a weak democracy since 2008 onward. In a first, the US received a lot of attention for the deterioration that democracy faced under the watch of President Donald Trump.

“This year we coded the United States as backsliding for the first time, but our data suggest that the backsliding episode began at least in 2019,” said the report. A co-author of the report, Alexander Hudson said the US is a high-performing democracy and even improved in indicators of impartial administration (corruption and predictable enforcement) in 2020 however the decline in civil liberties and checks on government indicate that there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy.

In addition, he noted a decline in civil liberties and checks on government which indicates there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy. The report noted: “A historic turning point came in 2020-21 when former president Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results.”

The organisation’s secretary general, Kevin Casas-Zamora, was particularly concerned about making the elections controversial and polarisation: “The visible deterioration of democracy in the United States as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation (in elections), and the runaway polarization are the most concerning developments.”

He warned of a knock-on effect, noting: “The violent contestation of the 2020 election without any evidence of fraud has been replicated, in different ways, in places as diverse as Myanmar, Peru and Israel.” While Myanmar moved from a democracy to an authoritarian regime, Afghanistan and Mali entered this category from their previous label of hybrid governments.

For 2021, according to the group’s provisional assessment, the world counts 98 democracies – the lowest number in many years – as well as 20 hybrid governments including Russia, Morocco and Turkey, and 47 authoritarian regimes including China, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Iran.