A new report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) shows that global democracy faced backlash in almost half of the countries last year, in the form of attacks on rights such as freedom of expression and assembly, or biased elections. ).
The latest State of Global Democracy report, released on Tuesday (November 2), found that 85 of 173 countries experienced a decline in at least one democracy indicator between 2017 and 2022.
Declines have occurred from one pole to the other, affecting countries such as Brazil, Canada and South Korea, as well as EU member states such as Hungary.
This is the sixth consecutive year of decline in democratic institutions since IDEA began collecting data in 1975, and the longest downward trend. Even though Europe has some of the best democratic performance in the world, this deterioration is no exception.
Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK saw “worrying deteriorations” in some key indicators, mainly related to the rule of law and press freedom.
Between 2017 and 2022, four times as many countries declined in press freedom as improved.
The report highlights that media self-censorship is worsening in Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands, amid concerns over surveillance of journalists and intensified efforts to target journalists.
Greece, where free speech has declined for the fifth consecutive year, is also facing a high-profile scandal involving extrajudicial hacking and surveillance of journalists by the government and intelligence services.
Even the European Parliament faces its own challenges ahead of the 2024 elections, with the Kadamon corruption scandal raising concerns about foreign interference in Europe’s legislative process.
Another major category of deterioration in Europe is the rule of law, mainly in Hungary and Poland, but also in other EU countries such as Austria.
Austria dropped eight places to 36th in the rule of law rankings amid concerns that the country needs to improve rules on the external activities of ministers and state secretaries.
Meanwhile, Hungary fell six places to 64th, with rule of law disputes long a problem underscoring the EU’s limited ability to monitor its “(un)democratic trajectory” even after the EU froze billions of euros in Hungary and Poland , and announced legal action to ensure its judicial independence.
“Apart from some minor changes in approach, the directions of both countries have generally remained unchanged,” the report states, adding that both eastern countries have experienced major setbacks on five key indicators over the past five years.
Nonetheless, the long-standing gap between northern and western countries and the Baltic and central European countries has begun to narrow.
Central Europe is the center of democratic development and has become the second-best region in terms of rule of law performance.
Additionally, in Estonia, following the March 2023 elections, female representation in parliament set a new record for the country, surpassing Norway and Finland. Latvia also made a huge jump in its global representation rankings.
“While many of our formal institutions are showing signs of weakness, we can still hope that these less formal counterforces, whether journalists, election organizers or anti-corruption commissioners, can successfully thwart authoritarianism and populism,” the IDEA secretary-general said. Tendency,” international Kevin Casas-Zamora said.
Europe has also been the region with the most protests since 2017, from people taking to the streets against fuel prices or the cost of living crisis to mobilizing against corruption or violations of rights protections.
As Poland has shown, mass mobilization can lead to positive outcomes, with civil society organizations organizing demonstrations that led the government to withdraw plans to further restrict safe and appropriate abortion in the country.