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Last weekend, Bangladeshs long-ruling Awami League won a significant election victory, taking a reported 222 seats out of a total of 298 available, according to the countrys Election Commission, which is heavily stacked with Awami League functionaries. This gives the Awami League and its increasingly autocratic leader, Sheikh Hasina, her fourth straight term in office and fifth term overall as prime minister.

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Unfortunately, during Sheikh Hasinas time in office, she cracked down more and more on opposition parties, civil society, the press, and virtually any other form of opposition. The main opposition party, the BNP, declined to participate in this election, declaring it would not be free and fair. They were right. Sheikh Hasina refused to allow a caretaker government to take over during the election period. In the past, caretaker governments allowed freer and fairer campaigning and helped prevent the ruling party from dominating the election machinery and process. Thousands, even tens of thousands of members of the BNP, are in detention, and a number have been killed. According to The Guardian, The election has been described as a sham designed to cement Hasinas rule by exiled opposition leader Tarique Rahman. Rahmans party staged amonths-long protest campaign in 2023demanding the prime ministers resignation that saw at least eleven people killed and thousands of its supporters arrested.

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Leading democracies agreed that the election was not free and fair. The United Kingdom condemned it as unfree, and according to Reuters, a U.S. State Department spokesman said, The United States remains concerned by the arrests of thousands of political opposition members and by reports of irregularities on elections day The United States shares the view with other observers that these elections were not free or fair, and we regret that not all parties participated.

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Sheikh Hasinas actions are consistent with an ongoing, longstanding trend of democratic regression in South and Southeast Asia. This trend encompasses military takeovers and non-military autocracies or hybrid states that have quashed democracy, or at least a degree of freedom, in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, and Myanmar. Even bright spots like Thailand, which at least had an election last year, ultimately went against the popular will and ended up installing a coalition government that did not include the party that won the most votes.

There is little reason to hope that things will turn around, at least anytime soon, in the region. Democratic regression could worsen. Indonesias presidential elections are coming up, and Prabowo Subianto, the leading candidate, has previously suggested that he would rule as a strongman-type leader. In Cambodia, new leader Hun Manet may be more open to economic change but continues the repressive environment toward political opposition and civil society. With the United States distracted and China increasingly influential in the region, democrats face an uphill battle.

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Bangladesh's Sham Election and the Regression of Democracy in South and Southeast Asia - Council on Foreign Relations

Ever wonder just who is behind the consistent attacks on Democracy in the courts? Look no further than a little known law group in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Institute For Law and Liberty (WILL) is a conservative firm founded in 2011 that has filed lawsuits and intervened in a myriad of cases to advance Republican interests.

WILL was founded and is led by Rick Esenberg, who claims to have litigated more cases as a lawyer at the Wisconsin Supreme Court than any other private lawyer in the state. WILL is largely funded by the Bradley Foundation, a conservative Wisconsin right-wing group that has become an extraordinary force in persuading mainstream Republicans to support radical challenges to election rulesa tactic once relegated to the far right and funds a network of groups that have been stoking fear about election fraud, according to the New Yorker.

Despite its websites Preserving Democracy Project, WILL is the exact opposite of a pro-democracy force. WILL spent nearly a year investigating former President Donald Trumps bogus claims of election fraud and forced the purging of 200,000 voter registrations. The law firm has litigated to restrict voting rights in numerous cases in recent years, with some cases still outstanding.

Perhaps the most infamous impact WILL has on Wisconsin elections is its involvement in a case that ultimately banned the use of drop boxes across the entire state. In June 2021, the group filed a lawsuit on behalf of two voters against the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), requesting that the court ban drop boxes and require voters to mail or return their own ballots to designated officials. Drop boxes are secure containers where voters can easily drop off ballots in sealed and signed envelopes.

The suit was filed despite the fact that in 2020, Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans both agreed that drop boxes were a secure way to cast mail-in ballots that led to a flourishing of voter turnout.

Lawyers for WILL argued that guidance issued by WEC allowing the use of drop boxes conflicted with the states existing mail-in ballot system. In their lawsuit, they went so far as making absurd claims that a liberal reading of the guidance would permit a shoebox on a park bench to be a way for voters to cast a ballot a blatantly false claim. WILL also attacked community ballot collection, outright ignoring the numerous voters for whom dropping off a ballot is a significant burden. Community ballot collection provides voters with a safe and easy way to cast their ballots by permitting designated organizations, election officials or family members to collect a voters signed and sealed ballot and deliver the ballot to election officials on the voters behalf.

WEC along with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and Disability Rights Wisconsin defended the practice, arguing that the drop boxes were permissible and served as an authorized extension of clerks. They pointed to the disenfranchisement of marginalized voters as a further defense of drop boxes.

Ultimately, the then-conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court held that drop boxes were unauthorized under Wisconsin law in a catastrophic ruling. The decision was devastating for Wisconsin voters, eliminating a convenient method of voting that is especially of use to Black, working-class and younger voters that contributed to the 1.9 million votes cast by mail in the state in 2020. WILL would later herald the devastating decision in a press release.

WILL found another way to attempt to attack Wisconsinites voting rights in the run up to the 2022 midterm elections, this time by challenging the use of convenient mobile voting sites throughout the city of Racine. Wisconsin law permits city clerks to designate alternate mail-in voting locations if the clerks office is unavailable for in-person voting. Racine seemingly took advantage of that policy by using an election van that moved to various locations to best allow for early mail-in voting.

WILL challenged the validity of the van, claiming that alternate locations are not allowed to be moved, as the van permitted, claiming the expansive policy afforded an advantage to the Democratic Party. Tara McMenamin, Racines city clerk, pointed out in a response to WILL that nothing in Wisconsin law prohibits the use of a vehicle as an alternate mail-in voting site, and clarified that the sites various locations were chosen based on accessibility for all Racine residents.

McMenamin was adamant in her response that the city was compliant with the law, despite numerous claims by WILLs lawyers to the contrary. In a ruling, WEC agreed, writing that it found that the Complainant did not show probable cause to believe that a violation of law or abuse of discretion occurred, allowing the accessible voting method to remain in effect for the 2022 election.

Not dismayed by the decision, WILL challenged Racines van yet again in December 2022, this time filing a lawsuit against the city clerk as well as WEC, appealing its dismissal of the administrative complaint. WILL claimed that mobile voting sites violate Wisconsin law, and once again alleged the voting sites disproportionately helped Democrats.

Just this week, a court reversed WECs dismissal of the complaint lodged against the van, ruling it violated state law and barring the van from being used in future elections.

Before September 2023, 47 states accepted the use of the federal voter registration form, the National Mail Voter Registration Form. Provided by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the form has long been used to allow voters to register by mail and by third-party voter registration groups to increase turnout from diverse groups.

That number went down to 46 last September, as a result of a lawsuit filed by WILL. The conservative group claimed the form failed to comply with Wisconsin law by omitting certain items, such as information about a voters residency or whether a voter has a criminal record. Despite fierce arguments from WEC defending the use of the form as compliant with Wisconsin law, a Wisconsin judge declared the form illegal and ordered WEC to withdraw the forms approval.

The court did not rule on whether the form itself was compliant with state law, but rather deemed the form to have never been approved by WEC, as required. WILL described the restrictive decision as a tremendous victory for Wisconsinites.

WILL also filed a petition in the summer of 2021, arguing that the states legislative and congressional maps were malapportioned following the release of 2020 census data because the state had yet to subsequently draw new maps reflective of the changes. Ultimately, maps were ordered to be drawn reflecting this new data, and the states Republican-controlled Legislature adopted gerrymandered maps to further entrench their power.

Intervening to defend suppressive voting laws and gerrymandered maps has also been a practice of WILL. In a lawsuit filed last July challenging three restrictive Wisconsin procedures regulating mail-in voting, WILL served as counsel for an association attempting to intervene to defend the laws. The lawsuit challenged the states blanket drop box ban, which WILL made possible, the states burdensome absentee ballot witness requirement and a cure deadline for absentee ballots. The association was ultimately denied intervention.

WILL similarly represented a group of voters seeking to uphold the states gerrymandered legislative maps (a result of the previously mentioned lawsuit filed by WILL), which are among the most gerrymandered in the U.S. Among other arguments, WILLs lawyers claimed that the states legislative maps did not violate the contiguity requirements of the Wisconsin Constitution, an assertion the Wisconsin Supreme Court disagreed with the states high court struck down the maps just last week for including districts that were illegally noncontiguous, meaning not touching.

While WILL has done its fair share of work to endanger democracy, the right-wing legal group is far from the only group continuously attacking voting rights under the radar. The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a Virginia-based conservative law group, has made it its mission to purge voters from rolls in states across the country. The America First Legal Foundation, founded by Stephen Miller, a close ally to former President Donald Trump, has fought to attack drop boxes and promote the fringe and now-rejected independent state legislature theory.

The conservative legal groups are part of a wide anti-voting network that work together to make voting more difficult and free and fair elections less likely. Other groups include True the Vote, the Election Integrity Network, the Heritage Foundation and more. While suppressive efforts by Republicans will continue to make headlines, it is important to be aware of the often overlooked groups like WILL who are responsible for the anti-democratic carnage.

A representative for WILL did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

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The Little Known Wisconsin Legal Group Wreaking Havoc on Democracy - Democracy Docket

Charlotte Bingham 27 had never traveled outside the United States until last fall, when she enrolled at Syracuse Strasbourg in France, one of Syracuse Universitys five study abroad centers. The first-year student wasted no time exploring the historic, diverse city, built on an island in the River Ill and straddling the French-German border.

Strasbourg is ideal for undergraduates because unlike most metropolitan cities, its safe, welcoming and easy to explore, says Bingham, a Long Island native majoring in international relations. I made it my European hometown.

She also discovered Strasbourgs importance as a geopolitical hub. A symbol of peace and postwar reconciliation between France and Germany, the city houses major global institutions, including the European Parliament; the European Court of Human Rights; and the Council of Europe, a human rights organization that sponsors the World Forum for Democracy.

In November, Bingham was one of 10 Syracuse students who, as part of their coursework for Politics of the European Union (PSC 405) and European Human Rights (PSC 429), had the rare opportunity to serve as official rapporteurs at the World Forum for Democracy. As notetakers, they reported on key discussion points at the three-day event, which was attended by representatives from more than 80 countries and focused on defending democracy and human rights.

I saw the world in a new, three-dimensional way, recalls Bingham, whose reporting on the proceedings was included in the forums final summary. Programs like Syracuse Strasbourg help me make sense of the world, seeing it as a community of people rather than an impersonal map of lines and borders.

Center Director John Goodman agrees, noting a new agreement between the University, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Strasbourg, and the Council of Europe. The new partnership is a gem of an opportunity for students and faculty alikethe first of its kind between a U.S. institution and the Council of Europe.

We recently caught up with Goodman as well as Bingham, Nathaniel Hasanaj 25 (international relations), William Johnson 25 (history and social studies education) and Grace Reed 25 (broadcast and digital journalism) to discuss Syracuse Strasbourg.

Tell us about the World Forum for Democracy.

Johnson: It brought together business leaders and representatives from governments, youth delegations and non-governmental organizations to examine the state of democracy in the world. Many attendees presented initiatives designed to improve democracy and the quality of life for others.

Bingham: One presenter who stood out to me was a public policy analyst from Kenya. She talked about the People Dialogue Festival, where Kenyans from all walks of life meet to discuss governmental, social and economic issues. That this is done against the backdrop of different cultural experiences, like food, music and dance, is fascinating.

Hasanaj: The forum enables political decision-makers and activists to debate solutions to key democratic challenges. Its based on the three values of the Council of Europe: democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

I saw the world in a new, three-dimensional way. Programs like Syracuse Strasbourg help me make sense of the world, seeing it as a community of people rather than an impersonal map of lines and borders.

What was it like serving as a rapporteur?

Reed: Each of us attended a lab group or a forum talk, where we took official notes and formed opinions about various initiatives being presented. [Reeds lab, titled The Art of Dialogue: Can Empathy Deliver Peace?, featured presentations of four such initiatives.] After discussing our findings with other rapporteurs, we decided which projects should proceed to the final round.

Hasanaj: My lab was titled Women Building Peace, and it explored ways to make peace negotiations more inclusive. One presenter was the founder of the South Sudanese Women Intellectuals Forum, which uses social and broadcasting media to promote a free, just and equitable society. Her presentation was not only informative and well structured, but also extremely passionate. Listening to her made me realize why women and girls in war-torn countries like South Sudan are often marginalized.

Johnson: As rapporteurs, we helped determine which initiative was most popularand would receive the Council of Europes prestigious Democracy Innovation Award. I learned about pressing issues, like the environmental and health impacts of mining in Ghana and Serbias clean water crisis. As a future social studies teacher, Im interested in how these kinds of issues affect government and society.

The Universitys new partnership with the Council of Europe creates experiential opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. What are your thoughts on it?

Goodman: The agreement is an outgrowth of the Universitys Academic Strategic Plan, which emphasizes study abroad and student engagement with real-time public issues. It provides a dozen internships for students studying in Strasbourg. It also fosters unique research opportunities for students and faculty.

It's extremely rare and valuable for students, especially undergraduates, to work inside an organization like the Council of Europe, which represents more than 700 million people. Thanks to our 50-year presence in Strasbourg, the University has direct access to working practitioners in major international bodies.

Hasanaj: As the so-called Capital of Europe, Strasbourg offers many pre-professional learning opportunities and experiences. Some of the ideas I encountered at the World Forum of Democracy have broadened my perspective, something that probably wouldnt have happened otherwise. I feel more independent and have a deeper understanding of Europeanespecially French and Germanhistory and culture.

Reed: Studying abroad in Strasbourg, I developed a greater sense of autonomy and resilience while advancing my future career through opportunities like the World Forum of Democracy. I now see the worldand the people in itin a new way.

This story was published on January 10, 2024.

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Studying Abroad While Defending Democracy and Human Rights - Syracuse.edu - Syracuse University

Campaign 2024 is just getting underway, but President Biden already has framed it as a fight to save American democracy. That’s true no matter who wins the Republican presidential nomination.

If it’s Donald Trump, the threat to democracy is obvious. Having already instigated one failed coup attempt, he won’t hesitate to reject the voters’ verdict if he’s defeated again in November.

And if he wins, Trump has vowed to sic the Justice Department on his political enemies and pardon the Jan. 6 rioters, defining treason down for future insurrectionists.

Even a Biden victory, though, would only be a reprieve from our deeper dilemma: Public confidence in democracy is cratering.

Last week, the Gallup Organization reported that the number of Americans who say they are satisfied with the way our democracy is working has sunk to a record low of 28 percent.

Such public alienation provides fertile soil for Trump’s cynical cultivation of “deep state” paranoia among right-wing populists. Outside the Trump cult, however, Americans seem more upset about the atrophy of the government’s power to help them solve their problems.

This institutional impotence confronts Democrats with an inescapable dilemma. As believers in an active government, they need to prove to skeptical voters that they can make it more responsive and effective. But that will require facing down important party constituencies, such as public sector unions and progressive activists more passionate about making government bigger than better.

Why does U.S. democracy seem so broken? One answer comes from Philip Howard, a lawyer and author whose books grapple with the causes of today’s public sector dysfunction.   

In his latest, “Everyday Freedom,” Howard cites the buildup since the 1960s of laws and rules that were intended to ensure procedural fairness, but in practice have chipped away at officials’ authority to do their jobs.  

Modern law, he says, has created “an elaborate precautionary system aimed at precluding human error.” Public officials have learned it’s safer to hide behind highly prescriptive laws and regulations than to risk using their judgment, moral intuition and common sense to solve public problems.

No government can codify the “correct” answers to life’s myriad problems and puzzles. Citizens have conflicting interests and demands. Public authorities are hired to reconcile those interests and make reasonable trade-offs that weigh individual claims against the common good.

But instead of protecting individual rights, modern laws have weaponized them to block such compromises, says Howard. “America is suffering from a crisis of human disempowerment.”

He offers many examples: Classroom teachers who lack authority to deal with disruptive students; police departments that can’t fire or disciple rogue cops because of union contracts; environmental reviews that create multiple veto points for opponents to endlessly delay the issuing of permits to upgrade the nation’s energy and other infrastructure.

To his list, I’d add larger systemic failures that leave frustrated citizens wondering whether they’re stuck with a “can’t do” government forever.

A dramatic example is the chaos on our southern border. There were nearly 250,000 illegal crossings in December, a one-month record. U.S. authorities have released more than 2.3 million migrants at the border since President Biden took office three years ago.

The federal government’s chronic failure to secure the border, enforce laws against hiring illegal aliens and welcome more willing workers through legal channels reflects badly on our country’s democratic competence.

The spread of massive homeless encampments in our major metros also is emblematic of the government’s inability to deliver on its fundamental responsibility to provide public order and safety. Last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that 650,000 people were homeless.

This is partly a housing crisis, an economic crisis and a mental health crisis. Most shamefully, in the name of individual rights and “freedom,” our society has dumped hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people, many of whom can’t take care of themselves, into our city streets and parks.

Another example is the states’ failure to modernize America’s outdated K-12 public school system. We’re stuck with an early 20th century model that offers one-size-fits-all schools micromanaged by district bureaucrats whose hands are tied by rigid union contracts.

Our legacy public school systems are failing many Black and brown students in low-income communities. Chicago, for example, spends $18,000 a year per student yet only 15 percent of high school students rate as proficient or better at reading and 14 percent at math.

U.S. students in supposedly “good” suburban schools aren’t hitting it out of the park, either. The latest international comparison of student achievement ranks them 28th in math proficiency.

Whereas Howard’s books focus on the substitution of rules and legal processes for human judgment, these three examples point to new political dynamics — the rise of cultural politics, identitarian ideologies and separate partisan versions of reality — that shrink America’s common ground and make it difficult for elected leaders to forge consensus around anything. 

Nonetheless, both strains of analysis agree that ineffectual governance corrodes the social trust necessary to sustain a healthy democracy. People who don’t believe the government can help them solve their problems are less disposed to trust and cooperate with others, and more susceptible to populist strongmen who promise to help them regain power over their lives.

American democracy once seemed capable of grand achievements: Defeating fascism and Japanese imperialism, putting a man on the moon, dismantling barriers to equal rights for Blacks and women and building the international alliances and economic institutions that enabled the democracies to prosper and prevail in the Cold War.

The challenge for Biden and the Democrats this year isn’t just to keep Trump out of the White House. It’s also to commit to making government work again and restoring America’s reputation as a “can do” democracy.

Will Marshall is the founder and president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

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Beyond partisan deadlock, theres a nation in search of can do democracy - The Hill

To read the headlines, one could be forgiven for thinking that democracy is in terminal decline around the world. Yet for all the challenges we face, 2024 is set to be a historic year for elections. Nearly 100 countries are scheduled to hold electoral contests, and more than half the global population lives in countries that will go to the polls.

No election is perfect, but billions of voters turning out to hold their leaders accountable and elect new ones represent a compelling case that autocracy is not the wave of the future.

Not all of these elections will be free or fair. Some, in countries such as Russia and Iran, will be outright shams. But this volume of electoral activity is a testament to the very real progress that has been made in advancing political freedom worldwide. Indeed, the fact that more people will be voting in Asia than live in China is a reminder that Beijing’s totalitarianism makes it an outlier even in its own region.

This is not to understate the serious threats facing the free world. Authoritarian aggression is on the march, from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to the Hamas-Iran assault on Israel to China’s menacing of Taiwan. Autocrats are also playing offense by deploying economic coercion and sophisticated campaigns of political interference against free societies.

The case of Taiwan — which will hold general elections on Jan. 13 — is instructive. Contrast Taiwan’s vibrant democracy with the faltering top-down regime in mainland China, and you’ll understand one of the key reasons Beijing cannot tolerate an independent Taiwan. The mere fact of millions of Taiwanese going to the polls shows citizens of mainland China that there is no inherent cultural reason they should not also be a self-governing people.

The democratic model has repeatedly demonstrated its superiority to authoritarianism. Authoritarian governments inevitably become sclerotic, insulated from reality, and unable to deliver for their people precisely because they lack free elections that reflect the genuine priorities of citizens. Leaders lack the knowledge they need to make good decisions in the absence of political competition, which might otherwise generate fresh approaches to policy challenges and allow the free exchange of information.

This makes authoritarians far more vulnerable to economic, social, and political instability. It also leaves them open to catastrophic strategic mistakes, such as Putin’s belief Ukraine would fall without a fight.

Alliances between democracies are stronger than those of autocracies because they are rooted in common values. America supports the rise of one Asian giant, India, in part because it is a democracy. China’s opaque authoritarianism, in contrast, makes its power so menacing to free societies on both sides of the Pacific.

Or consider how NATO rallied together in response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In contrast, authoritarian partnerships are far more brittle, subject to disruption and distrust. Does anyone really believe that the Sino-Russian axis could be as strong as, for instance, the relationship between the U.S. and Japan?

Economically, democracies outperform autocracies. Their citizens are, on average, six times wealthier. Culture is not the driver here, but politics, as we see in comparing North Korea with South Korea. According to the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Index, “66 percent of the variation in prosperity around the world can be explained by freedom.”

This makes sense: Property rights, rule of law, and sound institutions secure capital and investment, promote entrepreneurial aspiration, and generate inclusive growth with minimal corruption. An astounding 86 percent of global portfolio investment comes from the U.S. and U.S.-aligned countries — with few indicators to suggest that China and its benighted vassal states will supplant them any time soon. In China, capital flight now exceeds inbound investment, attesting to the systemic weaknesses of Xi Jinping’s centralized and politically-directed economic model.

It’s no accident that the global expansion of democracy occurred at a time of unprecedented American power. U.S. leadership has created the conditions in which free markets and free people can thrive. Conversely, when the United States turns inward, authoritarian malefactors have been quick to fill the vacuum.

If the free world is to prevail over the tyrants who seek its destruction, America must stand up for our democratic friends and lead, not retreat. That means investing in the conditions for free and fair elections in developing democracies, and creating inroads with potential partners who are being courted by authoritarian powers. It also means defending democracies under assault — like Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan — and doing everything in our power to support the forces of democratic change, such as the women-led protest movement in Iran.

Those who argue that Americans don’t care about foreign policy should consider the lessons of history. American presidents suffer when they are viewed as abdicating our global leadership role. President Biden’s public approval rating turned negative when he abandoned Afghanistan.

What’s more, polling by the Reagan Institute suggests that a clear majority of Americans (7.5 out of 10) want the U.S. to maintain its global leadership role, and almost 3 in 4 believe that Washington, wherever possible, should stand up for human rights and democracy in international affairs.

As we look ahead to 2024, we must be clear-eyed about both the promise and the peril that confronts us. The historic volume of democratic elections is one reason for optimism, and one that America in particular should celebrate.

Daniel Twining is the president of the International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working in more than 100 countries to advance democracy.

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The free world should celebrate 2024 as a landmark year for democracy - The Hill