PART IV
Lessons from the past, and harbingers for the future of democracy
In Poland and Hungary, the aptly dubbed “illiberal democracies” have taken hold, with the ruling parties in both countries considered by the EU and by civil society of the West to be working to undermine democratic governance. A 2024 US presidential candidate has gone so far to the conservative side that he openly praises the several most powerful dictators for their strength and power, including Vladimir Putin, with whom his country is now engaged as an active partner in a war against that dictator. He flaunts his comradeship with the dictator of Hungary, Viktor Mihály Orbán by praising him in the US press and making him the guest of honor in quasi state dinners held in his sumptuous private property. He has lavished high praise publicly on Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an Islamic dictator. He identifies his personal admiration for undemocratic power holders and his aspirations to be like them. He has announced his intentions to so alter US government structure to permit a changeover to a top-down controlled nation under his power during an upcoming presidential term. Should he die or be disabled during such a term, his base need not fear; his vice president is even more conservative ultra-right; both of them somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.
Within English-speaking Western democracies, “protection-based” attitudes combining cultural conservatism, transactional [what do I get, and what do you give] along with their existing leftist economic attitudes were the strongest predictor of support for authoritarian modes of governance. Those attitudes—reflected in successful voting results] are increasing the numbers of more isolationistic and more populist semi- or frank dictatorships. The democratic movement remains in something of a state of flux, even in the UK. Witness the improbable election of the populist far-right Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022.
He stepped down as the United Kingdom’s prime minister on July 7, 2022 after having won the Brexit vote which removed the UK from the successful embrace of the EU, and taking the economy of the UK into a downhill cascade, appointing cronies unsuitable for a job in government, a culture of rule-breaking inside the prime minister’s office in a scandal known as “Partygate”–alcohol-fueled bashes held by Downing Street staff members when coronavirus pandemic restrictions prevented UK residents from socializing or even visiting dying relatives. That issue led to him becoming the first serving UK prime minister found to have broken the law.
In Europe, Ukraine saw several protest movements leading to a switch from effective oligarchy to more democracy; as of 2019, since the Maidan revolution of February, 2014, Ukraine has seen two presidential elections and the peaceful transfer of power. They are engaged in a mighty war against a hegemonistic Russian dictatorship bent on erasing all steps to democracy even at the risk of igniting an unimaginable World War III. The democratic West has contributed strongly–but with reservations–and the end is not in sight, especially with the great indecision facing American voters in the election of 2024.
Although Europe remains the strongest-performing region in the GSoD Indices, there has been worrisome deterioration in some of the region’s long-standing high performers in the past five years.
In 2022, there was a deterioration in the scores of long-standing and strong democracies, including Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. Declines have affected a number of indicators, the most common being Rule of Law–especially Predictable Enforcement and Freedom of the Press. Although these countries remain high-performing in most factors, the declines highlight the importance of constant vigilance in future-proofing democracy.
In spite of blatant declines in Hungary and Poland, Central Europe continued to be the center of democratic growth, becoming the second-highest performing subregion with regard to Rule of Law. Slovenia experienced a remarkable democratic rebound and is now among those performing in the top 25% with regard to the Absence of Corruption at the global level.
As a supranational CI, the European Union mobilized intra-EU unity on support and aid for Ukraine and took steps to revive the enlargement process and to protect democratic norms in its member states. Moldova and Ukraine gained EU candidacy status; and the European Council reviewed Georgia’s membership application, indicating that it would be ready to grant candidate status to the country once certain steps had been taken. The accession processes in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, were also reinvigorated, and Kosovo was granted the long-awaited visa-free status. Inside the bloc, the EU also finally took concrete actions in the ongoing rule of law disputes with Hungary and Poland.
The clearly non-democratic group of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia, and Türkiye, has drifted away from the rest of Europe, performing well below the European average across most indicators of democracy.
The number of democratic states has continued to grow since 2006, but the share of weaker electoral democracies has grown significantly as well, creating fragile democracies with populist dictatorships pushing in from the fringes. The United States is showing conspicuous hints of moving to the fringes. As of 2020, authoritarianism and populism are on the rise around the world; and the number of people living in democracies has become less than seen at the end of the Cold War.
“Democratic backsliding” in the 2010s is attributed to economic inequality and social discontent, personalism [e.g. Boris Johnson], poor management of COVID-19 pandemic [failure to unite against the disease because it would be “bad for business” [a strong right-wing advocacy led people to distrust governmental restrictions and immunizations] as well as other factors such as government manipulation of civil society, “toxic polarization” [note the wide divide in American politics, bordering on civil disunion], foreign disinformation campaigns influencing elections [note Putin’s hackers advocating for Donald Trump and Iran for Kamala Harris], racism and nativism, excessive executive power [especially as advocated by right wing evangelical support of Trumpian accumulation of executive power], and decreased power of the opposition. Large parts of the world, such as China, Russia, Central and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and much of Africa have consolidated authoritarian rule rather seeing it weaken.
