Mediaboss Marketing

Afghanistan is one of nine countries that have become outright dictatorships in the last two years, according to researchers at the University of Gothenburg. (Photo: Omer Abrar / AFP / NTB)

The global levelof democracy is back to where it was in 1986. This means that 35 years ofdemocratic progress have been reset over the past decade.

Nine countries have become pure dictatorships in the last two years:

Afghanistan, Chad, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Mali, Myanmar, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Another term for these is closed autocracies, see fact box.

These trends have been documented by the Varieties of Democracy project at the University of Gothenburg, also called V-DEM. They have measured the level of democracy in the world by examining how many of the world's inhabitants live with democratic rights.

The V-Dem reportdistinguishes among four forms of government: closed autocracies, electoralautocracies, electoral democracies and liberal democracies. Autocracy is thesame as a dictatorship.

In closedautocracies, either no elections are held, or elections are held, but the headof state is not exposed to any real competition in the elections.

In electoralautocracies, elections are held between different parties, but the electoralprocess does not meet democratic standards.

In electoraldemocracies, free and fair elections are held. In addition, the population hasa number of institutional democratic rights, such as freedom of expression andthe right to organise.

In liberaldemocracies, the legislature and the judiciary also supervise the executive,and the rule of law and individual freedom of citizens are protected.

Source: Politicsand Governance

yvind sterud, a professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo(UiO), has contributed to V-DEM's latest report as a country expert.

He points out thatsome of the most authoritarian countries in the world such as China and nowIndia are extremely populous. This has an impact on the measurements. But themore-or-less authoritarian states are also in the majority when the number ofstates is used as the unit of measurement.

sterud believesthat the decline in democratic governance is often due to economic setbacks.

There will likelybe more dissatisfaction, more polarization. The authorities tend to tighten upa bit because there is more unrest, so economic crises are an important part ofthe explanation for the decline in democratic governance, he said.

Some countrieswith authoritarian rule, such as China, have also been very successfuleconomically.

This means thatan authoritarian form of government has become a development model for othercountries, because democratic regimes have been very poor at delivering welfareand growth, he said. Many democratic states have stagnated and experiencedrising unemployment.

The democraticdecline is particularly evident in the Pacific region, in Eastern Europe and inCentral Asia. There has also been a decline in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There arenevertheless examples of countries that have moved in the opposite direction,from authoritarian rule to democratic rule. Bolivia, Bulgaria, the CzechRepublic, the Dominican Republic, Malawi, Moldova and Zambia have all seen anevolution from authoritarian rule to democracy over the past three years.

sterud believesthis may be due to the fact that they have managed to pursue an economic growthpolicy, which in turn means that they deliver more to the population.

These countries aretrying to implement redistribution policies, which means that the difference betweenpoor and rich becomes somewhat smaller. The southern and south-eastern Europeancountries are also characterized by membership of the EU, which has enabledthem to reduce unemployment by exporting labour to richer parts of Europe, hesaid.

This means thatthe living conditions for many improve, and then the conditions for democraticgovernance are more favourable, he said.

yvind sterud is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. (Photo: UiO)

Are there anycountries that are currently governed in an authoritarian manner that couldmove in a more democratic direction in the coming years?

sterud is not certain.

It is verydifficult to predict that, because it depends very much on the development inthe country, whether they manage to reverse the trend in the direction ofsmaller tensions between ethnic groups, and dampen internal tensions, he said.

He neverthelesssees Ukraine as an opportunity in the longer term.

It is possible tothink that at one point or another, when the war is over, Ukraine will becomedependent on Western support for reconstruction. As of today, Ukraine is a kindof hybrid regime, as it is called, with strong authoritarian features andenormous corruption, and it is reasonable to believe that things will improvewhen the war is over. With dependence on Western support and a strongerorientation towards the West, there will be pressure in the direction of tryingto overcome some of the corruption and to get a government that is responsiveto the population, he said.

Translated by Nancy Bazilchuk

Reference:

Evie Papada et.al.: Defiance in the Face of Autocratization. V-Dem Institute Democracy report, 2023.

Read the Norwegian version of this article at forskning.no

Link:
There are now more dictatorships than democracies in the world - Sciencenorway