The Atlantic
Judging by 2014's crowded election calendar, this will be a landmark year for democracy. The Economist estimates that an unprecedented 40 percent of the world’s population will have a chance to vote in national polls in 2014. We'll see races in populous countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, the United States, and, most notably, India, where 700 million people are expected to cast ballots in what Fareed Zakaria has called the “largest democratic process in human history.”
But here’s the catch: The “biggest year for democracy ever,” as The Economist is billing it, follows a year that in many ways was characterized by the ascent of authoritarianism. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad, with the help of Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah, gained the upper hand in the country’s devastating civil war. In Egypt, the crucible of the Arab Spring, the Egyptian military overthrew the democratically elected Mohammed Morsi and launched a heavy-handed crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and other pockets of opposition. In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan silenced political opponents and stifled freedom of expression—at least, that is, until a corruption scandal and plans to redevelop a park sparked a backlash against his increasingly authoritarian governing style.
The phenomenon extended beyond the Middle East. Russian President Vladimir Putin consolidated his control at home and abroad, playing an essential role in Syrian diplomacy, purchasing Ukraine’s loyalty for $15 billion, and detaining and releasing adversaries on a whim. In China, Xi Jinping emerged as the country’s most powerful leader in decades. Freedom House reported a worldwide decline in Internet freedom, noting, amid Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. spying, that “an uptick in surveillance was the year’s most significant trend.” On several occasions—Russia granting asylum to Snowden, China establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea—authoritarian governments deliberately taunted their democratic rivals … and got away with it.
These trends may have accelerated in 2013, but they’ve been apparent for some time now. In its 2013 “Freedom in the World” report, Freedom House noted that more countries registered declines in freedom than gains in 2012—for the seventh year in a row (this despite the fact that the number of electoral democracies in the world increased slightly in 2012). Two years earlier, the organization asserted that “freedom’s forward march” had actually peaked at the turn of the 21st century.
Below is the percentage of countries that Freedom House has labeled as “free,” “partly free,” and “not free” in its reports from 1989 to 2012. You can see how the breakdown between the three categories begins to flatline around the year 2000. The world settles into stasis at roughly 45 percent free, 25 percent not free.
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