2022 was the sixth year in a row in which more countries experienced democratic decline than improvement, the longest decline since IDEA began keeping such records in 1975.
Liberal democracies face a general negative trendwith clear setbacks in aspects such as representation and rights, revealed this Wednesday in a report by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), which also recognizes positive aspects such as a decline in corruption and high electoral participation.
The Global Report on the State of Democracy notes that 2022 was the sixth year in a row in which more countries experienced democratic decline than an improvement, the longest decline since IDEA began keeping these types of records in 1975.
The deterioration, which affects even consolidated democracies in Europe, ranges from the integrity of electoral processes to the independence of the judiciary, security or freedom of expression and assembly.
“I think the outlook remains negative, very adverse for democracy on a global scale”the general secretary of IDEA, Kevin Casas-Zamora, explains to Efe, who highlights three major concerns: the “gap” between the West and the rest of the world, the lack of response to social demands and the case of the United States.
The war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Palestine They are “brutally” widening that gap, says Casas-Zamora, highlighting that “the rest of the world sees these two conflicts very differently from how the West sees them.”
“The fear I have is that democracy will be trapped in that abyss that is opening and that democracy in much of the rest of the world be considered a Western value against which we must reactthat democracy ends up in a blizzard,” explains the former vice president of Costa Rica, who speaks of a possible “tragedy.”
Casas-Zamora also warns that America’s “growing inability” to govern itself also sends a “calamitous” message for democracy worldwide, which has already been reflected, for example, in Brazil, and regrets the “widespread perception that democracy is not being able to respond to social demands,” especially among youth.
The report also recognizes some “green shoots”, such as the fall of corruption, especially in Africaand the high level of political participation, which coincides with a shift of the center of gravity of democracy from institutions to civic activism.
“The energy of democracy and the future are increasingly linked to what citizens do. I think people are becoming much more aware of their rights and are more willing to go out and claim them. There is a certain general perception of the futility of institutions, although they continue to be essential,” says Casas-Zamora.
Faced with the democratic decline, the report highlights the “key” role in curbing abuses of power of compensatory institutionsa term that includes electoral management bodies, anti-corruption agencies, popular movements, human rights organizations or investigative journalism.
Strengthening the role of these institutions is one of the public policy recommendations suggested by IDEA, as well as support electoral processes, promote mechanisms that guarantee participation and fair electionstransparency and access to information from legislative bodies or the protection of civic space.
On the European continent, “significant” drops in several democratic indicators despite the fact that it remains the best performing region, while progress in Central Europe in rule of law.
Africa combines a severe decline in representation by changes of institutional governments with high political participationwhile authoritarianism proliferates in Western Asia, with new forms of electronic surveillance and repression.
And, in Latin America, solidity in representation coexists with increasing declines in issues such as judicial independence, equality and public securitywith the largest declines recorded in Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela and sharp falls in El Salvador and Guatemala.
“The region continues to have a huge deficit in terms of the rule of law: Judicial independence continues to be a pending issue. Another problem, and an increasingly worse one, is the violence derived from the presence of organized crime,” denounces Casas-Zamora.
El Salvador is a “very eloquent” case of how citizens accept sacrificing rights to solve the problem of crime, which confirms the “enormous” urgency of offering democratic options, “but the temptation of the appearance of a Bukele It’s too big”.