Review of World Politics
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
In the year of the Covid-19 Pandemic 2020 – the annus horribilis – there was a perceptible decline in the functioning of democracy worldwide. This downslide was very ably quantified by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the London-based research and analysis group and sister organization of The Economist.
The EIU’s annual survey which rated the state of democracy across 167 countries based on such yardsticks like electoral processes and civil liberties, established that only 8.4 percent of the world lived in a full democracy in the year 2020, while more than a third lived under authoritarian rule. The global average score fell to 5.37 out of 10 on the democracy index. This was the lowest rating since the EIU began the index in 2006.
Another research organization, the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom House, a non-governmental, non-partisan advocacy group established in 1941, released a report in October last year that came to the same verdict. It concluded that the state of democracy and human rights had worsened in at least 80 countries since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
This phenomenon is not restricted to the developing countries and the tin-pot dictatorships of the so-called Third World. More than 100 nations, even including the United States, Canada and most of Western Europe, have become less free in the last four years, according to annual political rights and civil liberties scores tabulated by Freedom House. These scores are based on such factors as the right to vote, the right to freedom of expression and equality before the law.
This downturn challenges the once popular notion – especially in the West – that globalization would lead to an increasingly democratized world. Many of the world’s democracies have had a rough year and an easing of restrictions is not on the horizon.
As we have seen this month in Myanmar, even rare success stories can be reversed. The legacy of half a century of repressive military dictatorship began to wane in 2010 under the dynamic leadership of the democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The country’s experiment with a unique hybrid power-sharing system saw a sudden end with the military putsch on Monday, February 1.
Even countries with entrenched democratic traditions can see those democratic norms shattered, as we are observing on a daily basis in Narendra Modi’s ultra Hindu-nationalist India. In the world’s most populous democracy, a recent wave of protests by farmers has led to internet shutdowns, social media restrictions and the intimidation of journalists.
In the world’s oldest constitutional democratic republic, the United States, long the self-proclaimed champion of democratic norms and practices, has still to come to terms through the aftermath of former president Donald Trump’s vile attempt to illegally and unconstitutionally overturn the presidential election of November 3, 2020 and the chain reactions that subsequently led to the dastardly attack on the Congressional Capitol on January 6.
Across the world, there is ample evidence that global democracy is backsliding and the overall picture is not encouraging.
Reasons for Democracy’s Decline
However, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for the steady downward trend.
There is little doubt that one reason is the still raging pandemic, a public health crisis of astronomical proportions all over the world. Many nations were forced to impose unprecedented restrictions, as The Economist notes: “Confronted by a new, deadly disease to which humans had no natural immunity, most people concluded that preventing a catastrophic loss of life justified some temporary loss of freedom.”
However, the erosion of democratic norms has been a steady phenomenon. It has been observed that it is not democratization and human rights that transcend borders, but repression (WP/The Washington Post/World View, Feb. 4). This is also what tiny Nepal seems to be learning from its giant neighbours!
A Freedom House report found that there had been 608 cases of “direct, physical…transnational repression” since 2014, including state-sponsored assassinations, abductions, assaults, detentions and unlawful deportations.
Such cases include Saudi Arabia’s brutal killing of opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate-general in Istanbul and the attempted assassinations of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England, which made international headlines and spurred worldwide outrage. However, they are only the tip of the iceberg, with many countries distinguishing themselves as perpetrators of extensive and violent silencing campaigns.
Nepal’s Struggling Democracy
In the Himalayan Federal Democratic Republic (HFDR), sometime back a debate raged among intellectuals, political pundits and media analysts as the why Nepal failed to stand up for democratic values while reacting to the military coup in Myanmar. It failed to express concerns over the reversal of democratic reforms (TKP/The Kathmandu Post, Feb. 3).
This was a veritable storm in a teacup, with no meaning or repercussion. The point is that developments after 2008 have not been at all rosy. The so-called progressives are wont to designate political developments before that as ‘regressive’. Unfortunately, condemning the events in Myanmar would be like the pot calling the kettle black! In fact, what our enlightened leaders have achieved is no functioning ‘federalism’, nor ‘democracy’, nor a ‘republic’. To paraphrase the bard out of context: ‘Something is rotten in this Himalayan state’!
Democracy as such is not only for the HFDR’s so-called leaders and the apparatchiks of the political parties. Without genuine political participation of the people at large, there can be no functioning democracy. The mass demonstrations brought out by the various parties and factions lately were not eye-catching, but an utter eyewash. The mass of demonstrators was hired for the daily baksheesh of NPR 1000 and Masu Bhaat [meal of meat and rice].
In contrast, ordinary protesters in Myanmar have already come out in huge numbers against the generals’ usurpation of power. It is quite possible that some progressive ‘Young Turks’ will come to sympathize with the genuine people’s movement and exert the final coup d’grace to the generals.
America’s Terrible Example
For four years, Donald J. Trump flouted democratic norms within the United States and ceased to be a beacon of light and a champion of good governance. It continued to be a battered democracy, but at the same time facilitated repression around the world by example.
Trump’s constant cries of ‘fake news’ and persistent spread of misinformation were echoed around the world. The media became ‘the enemy of the people’ [borrowed from Josef Stalin] not only in the U.S., but also worldwide. The war on truth in the U.S. became a model also in India, the world’s largest democracy, in Turkey and elsewhere.
The unprecedented storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was an appalling revelation for international pro-democracy groups that had allied with the U.S. and were now disillusioned and defeated. A Venezuelan activist said despondently: “Our main ally in the fight for democracy has tumbled. What does that mean for us?” (WP).
This places the new U.S. President Joe Biden in a terrible dilemma. When the Myanmar military junta crushed a fledgeling democracy by again staging a coup d’etat, announcing a state of emergency and arresting Ms Suu Kyi and the leading members of the government at the beginning of this month, it justified the draconian moves by making unfounded claims of electoral fraud. Such a preposterous contention was, after all, also made by the former U.S. president!
Not only has Trump left an obnoxious legacy, but his Republican party is also unwilling and/or unable to start anew and rebuild good governance. Biden will have great difficulty in touting the idea of hosting a global democracy summit during the first year of his term.
Considering the broad shifts in geopolitics taking place, it will now be difficult for the United States and its allies to lecture other nations on democracy when their own systems are under such stress and strain. We can now look forward to a sustained battle between the forces of democracy and those of autocracy.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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