Democracy is in retreat. The latest annual assessment from Freedom House, the US watchdog, of the state of global political and civil liberties is stark. The world, it says, has become less democratic every year for 15 years — and, fuelled by the pandemic, 2020 was the worst yet in terms of the net number of countries registering declines. Three-quarters of the global population last year lived in countries where freedom was falling; less than 20 per cent lived in a free country. Hopes that the end of the cold war was a turning point after which democracy would expand have crumbled.
Some of the worst damage was seen in the world’s richest and most populous democracies — the US and India. The assault on American democracy led by its own president accelerated a decline that began before the Trump era and puts the US among the 25 countries where rights and liberties have declined the most over a decade. India dropped from “free” to “partly free” in the Freedom House assessment, continuing an erosion of rights under Narendra Modi. Elsewhere, from Hungary to countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, leaders used Covid-19 as a front to justify eroding liberties, the watchdog says.
The shifting global balance reflects not just a decline of democracies but a fightback by autocracies. China has combined increasingly repressive one-party rule with potent economic growth that — as President Xi Jinping trumpeted this week — has lifted 100m out of poverty since 2012, allowing it to claim its system offers a superior alternative. Authoritarians such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin have learnt to stop short of all-out dictatorship but maintain a facade of political choice. They have co-opted the internet and social media — once seen as forces of liberation — as tools of their own power.
How can democracies reverse the tide? The Biden administration hit the right note this week in signalling an end to “costly military interventions” that had “given democracy promotion a bad name”. Antony Blinken, secretary of state, conceded attempts to overthrow authoritarian regimes, however well intentioned, “haven’t worked”.
Democracy promotion begins at home. The US and its allies must repair their own political systems so they can again lead by example. That means strengthening institutions, making electoral systems fair and protecting them from interference. As Freedom House notes, it also means addressing the root causes of dissatisfaction.
Euro-Atlantic countries need to find more effective ways, too, to combat the slide among allied countries from democracies to non-democracies. The EU was legally and institutionally unprepared for backsliding among some of its own members. Yet countries such as Poland that have eroded the rule of law still rely on Nato for protection against their old foe — Russia; India seeks western allies in its rivalry with China. That gives Washington and western capitals moral leverage.
Western democracies are not themselves going to “convert” countries in the authoritarian camp, and certainly not by force. But they should step up support and solidarity to rights groups and democracy activists, by imposing sanctions or cutting business ties or aid to governments engaged in crackdowns. The US-EU response to Russia’s jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny looks dispiritingly weak — like Washington’s failure to take action against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As it did in the ex-Soviet empire, change can take decades. But where the democratic flame still burns, however feebly, it should be shielded and fed.