By Andrew Hammond
The collapse of the Soviet Union was widely predicted to herald a new generation of democratic enlargement across the world. Yet, three decades on, there are growing signs of much of the world moving toward authoritarian or non-democratic political models.
Take the example of the latest annual report last week from the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. The eye-catching claim in the research is that the United States, for the first time ever, belongs to a list of "backsliding democracies."
The reason for the downgrading of the United States is the debacle at the end of Donald Trump's administration. It was then that the former president disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 election in a way that the institute asserts undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, culminating in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Yet, while the United States is the headline grabber, the study found that more than a quarter of the globe now lives in such democratically backsliding countries ― defined as nations seeing a gradual decline in the quality of their democracy.
In the words of the study, "the world is becoming more authoritarian as nondemocratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments adopt their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a new normal of pandemic restrictions."
The research found that the number of countries moving in the direction of authoritarianism is three times those moving toward democracy which is unprecedented in its 50 years of tracking democratic indicators in what is now about 160 countries. It found that some of most concerning democratic backsliding is happening in the world's largest countries, including Brazil and India, while Hungary and Poland are also of concern in the EU.
The institute is by no means the only body that makes such claims. An October 2020 study by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Freedom House, for example, found that democracy and human rights had worsened in 80 countries since March of that year alone, the date when the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
The institute's research also tallies with separate, recent academic research from an international network of academics compiling the Global Populism Database. This work suggested last year that some 2 billion of the world's population were then governed by populist leaders, who tend to be at the vanguard of the trend toward democratic backsliding, winning power through campaign tactics like attacking multinational organizations, so-called "fake media" and immigrants.
The database highlights the extent of what it asserts is an approximately two decades rise in populism by analyzing speeches ― through textual analysis ― by key leaders in 40 countries during this period. The research found that, some 20 years ago, only a handful of states ― including Italy, Argentina and Venezuela ― with populations over 20 million had leaders classified as populists.
According to the database, this-then relatively small "populist club" expanded significantly after the international financial crisis from 2006 to 2009. But it was not until the last decade that there has been the biggest rise in populism with elections across the world bringing into power leaders such as Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
What the research reveals, however, is that this latest wave of populism has cast a bigger footprint than perhaps ever before. As a result the data indicated that in 2020 some 2 billion people were governed by populist leaders, an increase from 120 million at the turn of the millennium, with the research calling out other leaders like Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and India's Narendra Modi as belonging in the populist camp.
Another key finding is how shades of populism differ across the world. The study found, for instance, that South America populism leans toward socialism (albeit with Bolsonaro as a key outlier), whereas current populists in Europe tend to be right-of-center, as in Hungary and Poland today.
Going forward, a key question is whether this trend is now deeply entrenched, or reversible soon again. Here the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance report contains some optimism.
It highlights, for instance, that protests and civic action are alive and kicking with three-quarters of countries having protests during the pandemic. On that basis, it points to the resilience of democracy with people braving repression around the world, and global social movements for tackling climate change and fighting racial inequalities having emerged.
Even if that is true, however, it cannot be assumed that this current wave of democratic backsliding has peaked. This is partly because of the legacy of the pandemic which, at least in some countries, may yet provide a further fillip to populist leaders channeling the political and socio economic discontent of the last 18 months.
Andrew Hammond (andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
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Take the example of the latest annual report last week from the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. The eye-catching claim in the research is that the United States, for the first time ever, belongs to a list of "backsliding democracies."
The reason for the downgrading of the United States is the debacle at the end of Donald Trump's administration. It was then that the former president disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 election in a way that the institute asserts undermined fundamental trust in the electoral process, culminating in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Yet, while the United States is the headline grabber, the study found that more than a quarter of the globe now lives in such democratically backsliding countries ― defined as nations seeing a gradual decline in the quality of their democracy.
In the words of the study, "the world is becoming more authoritarian as nondemocratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments adopt their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a new normal of pandemic restrictions."
The research found that the number of countries moving in the direction of authoritarianism is three times those moving toward democracy which is unprecedented in its 50 years of tracking democratic indicators in what is now about 160 countries. It found that some of most concerning democratic backsliding is happening in the world's largest countries, including Brazil and India, while Hungary and Poland are also of concern in the EU.
The institute is by no means the only body that makes such claims. An October 2020 study by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Freedom House, for example, found that democracy and human rights had worsened in 80 countries since March of that year alone, the date when the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
The institute's research also tallies with separate, recent academic research from an international network of academics compiling the Global Populism Database. This work suggested last year that some 2 billion of the world's population were then governed by populist leaders, who tend to be at the vanguard of the trend toward democratic backsliding, winning power through campaign tactics like attacking multinational organizations, so-called "fake media" and immigrants.
The database highlights the extent of what it asserts is an approximately two decades rise in populism by analyzing speeches ― through textual analysis ― by key leaders in 40 countries during this period. The research found that, some 20 years ago, only a handful of states ― including Italy, Argentina and Venezuela ― with populations over 20 million had leaders classified as populists.
According to the database, this-then relatively small "populist club" expanded significantly after the international financial crisis from 2006 to 2009. But it was not until the last decade that there has been the biggest rise in populism with elections across the world bringing into power leaders such as Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
What the research reveals, however, is that this latest wave of populism has cast a bigger footprint than perhaps ever before. As a result the data indicated that in 2020 some 2 billion people were governed by populist leaders, an increase from 120 million at the turn of the millennium, with the research calling out other leaders like Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and India's Narendra Modi as belonging in the populist camp.
Another key finding is how shades of populism differ across the world. The study found, for instance, that South America populism leans toward socialism (albeit with Bolsonaro as a key outlier), whereas current populists in Europe tend to be right-of-center, as in Hungary and Poland today.
Going forward, a key question is whether this trend is now deeply entrenched, or reversible soon again. Here the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance report contains some optimism.
It highlights, for instance, that protests and civic action are alive and kicking with three-quarters of countries having protests during the pandemic. On that basis, it points to the resilience of democracy with people braving repression around the world, and global social movements for tackling climate change and fighting racial inequalities having emerged.
Even if that is true, however, it cannot be assumed that this current wave of democratic backsliding has peaked. This is partly because of the legacy of the pandemic which, at least in some countries, may yet provide a further fillip to populist leaders channeling the political and socio economic discontent of the last 18 months.
Andrew Hammond (andrewkorea@outlook.com) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
