Zakaira Fareed - The Rise of Illiberal Democracy

The Rise of Illiberal Democracy
Author(s): Fareed Zakaria

Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1997), pp. 22-43
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
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The Rise of
Illiberal
Democracy
FareedZakaria
THE NEXT WAVE
The American a
diplomat Richard Holbrooke pondered problem
on the eve of the elections in Bosnia, which were meant
September 1996
to restore civic life to that was
ravaged country. "Suppose the election
declared free and fair," he said, and those elected are "racists, fascists,
are to
separatists, who publicly opposed [peace and r?int?gration].
That is the dilemma." Indeed it is, not just in the formerYugoslavia,
but increasingly around the world. Democratically elected regimes,
often ones that have been reelected or reaffirmed through referenda, are
routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving

their citizens of basic rights and freedoms. From Peru to the Palestinian
Authority, from Sierra Leone to Slovakia, from Pakistan to the Philip
we see the rise of a in international life?
pines, disturbing phenomenon
illiberal democracy.
It has been difficult to this problem because for almost
recognize
a century in theWest, has meant liberal democracy?a
democracy
political system marked not only by free and fair elections, but also
a of powers, and the protection of
by the rule of law, separation
basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property. In fact,
this latter bundle of freedoms?what might be termed constitu
tional liberalism?is theoretically different and historically distinct
Fareed Zakaria isManaging Editor of Foreign Affairs and a Con
tributing Editor for Newsweek.
Ua]

from democracy. As the political scientist Philippe Schmitter has

pointed out, "Liberalism, either as a conception of political lib
erty, or as a doctrine about economic policy, may have coincided
with the rise of democracy. But it has never been immutably or
unambiguously linked to its practice." Today the two strands of

liberal democracy, interwoven in theWestern political fabric, are
coming apart in the rest of the world. Democracy is flourishing;
constitutional liberalism is not.
118 of the world's 193 countries are democratic, encom
Today,
a of its people (54.8 percent, to be exact), a vast
passing majority
increase from even a decade ago. In this season of victory, one
statesmen and intellectuals to go one
might have expected Western
further than E. M. Forster and give a rousing three cheers for
a
Instead there is growing unease at the
democracy. rapid spread of
elections across south-central Asia, Africa,
multiparty Europe,
and Latin America, perhaps because of what happens after the
elections. Popular leaders like Russia's Boris Yeltsin and Argentina's
Carlos Menem bypass their parliaments and rule by presidential
decree, eroding basic constitutional practices. The Iranian parlia
more most in theMiddle
ment?elected freely than East?imposes
harsh restrictions on and even dress,
speech, assembly, diminishing
that country's already meager supply of liberty. Ethiopia's elected
government turns its security forces on and political
journalists
to human as
opponents, doing permanent damage rights (as well
human beings).
Naturally there is a spectrum of illiberal democracy, ranging
from modest offenders like Argentina to near-tyrannies like
Kazakst?n and Belarus, with countries like Romania and
Bangladesh in between. Along much of the spectrum, elections are
as free and fair as in theWest
rarely today, but they do reflect the
reality of popular participation in politics and support for those
elected. And the examples are not isolated or
atypical. Freedom
House's 1996-97 survey, Freedom in the World, has separate rankings
for political liberties and civil liberties, which correspond roughly
with and constitutional
democracy liberalism, respectively. Of the
countries that lie between confirmed dictatorship and consolidated
50 percent do better on liberties than on civil
democracy, political
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [23]

Fareed Zakaria
ones. In other words, half of the "democratizing" countries in the

world are illiberal democracies.1
today
Illiberal democracy is a growth industry. Seven years ago only 22
percent of democratizing countries could have been so categorized;

five years ago that figure had risen to 35 percent.2 And to date few
illiberal democracies have matured into liberal democracies; if any
are toward heightened illiberalism. Far from
thing, theymoving
being
a temporary or transitional stage, it appears that many coun
tries are settling into a form of government that mixes a substantial
a substantial degree of illiberalism.
degree of democracy with Just
as nations across the world have become comfortable with many
variations of capitalism, they could well adopt and sustain varied
forms of democracy. Western liberal democracy might prove to be
not the final destination on the democratic road, but just one of
many possible exits.
DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY
From the time democracy has meant, first and fore

of Herodotus
most, the rule of the people. This view of democracy as a process of
selecting governments, articulated by scholars ranging from Alexis de

now widely used by
Tocqueville toJoseph Schumpeter toRobert Dahl, is
social scientists. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington explains why:
Elections, open, free and fair, are the essence of democracy, the in
sine qua non. Governments produced by elections may be
escapable
aRoger Kaplan, ed., Freedom Around the World, 1997, New York: Freedom House,
rates on two for and
PP- 21-22. The
1997, survey countries scales, rights
7-point political
civil liberties (lower is better). I have considered all countries with a combined score of
between 5 and 10 to be democratizing. The percentage figures are based on Freedom
House's numbers, but in the case of individual countries I have not adhered stricdy to
its ratings.While the Survey is an extraordinary feat?comprehensive and intelligent?
its methodology conflates certain constitutional rights with democratic procedures,
which confuses matters. In addition, I use as examples (though not as part of the data
set) countries like Iran, Kazakst?n, and Belarus, which even in procedural terms are
semi-democracies at best. But they areworth highlighting as interesting problem cases
since most of their leaders were elected, reelected, and remain
popular.
2
Freedom in theWorld: The Annual Survey ofPolitical Rights and Civil Liberties, 1992
199J, pp. 620-26; Freedom in the World, 1989-1990, pp. 312-19.
[24] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume76No.6

inefficient, corrupt, shortsighted,
irresponsible, dominated by special
interests, and incapable of adopting
policies demanded by the public
good. These qualities make such
governments undesirable but
not make them un
they do
democratic. Democracy is
one virtue, not the
public
one, and the relation
only
of democracy to other
pub
lic virtues and vices can only
be understood if democracy
is clearly distinguished from
the other characteristics of
political systems.
This definition also accords with the

commonsense view of the term. If a
country holds competitive, multiparty

elections, we call it democratic. When
in politics is increased,
public participation
for example through the enfranchisement
of women, it is seen as more democratic. Of
course elections must be open and fair, and this
some for freedom of speech
requires protections
and assembly. But to go beyond this minimalist
definition and label a country democratic only if
it guarantees a catalog of social,
comprehensive
political, economic, and religious rights turns the
word democracy into a badge of honor rather than
a
descriptive category. After all, Sweden has an economic system
that many argue curtails individual property rights, France until
a state on television, and England has an
recently had monopoly
established But are all clearly and identifiably
religion. they
democracies. To have democracy mean, subjectively, "a good gov
ernment" renders it analytically useless.
Constitutional liberalism, on the other hand, is not about the proce
dures for selecting government, but rather government's goals. It refers

Fareed Zakaria
to the tradition,
deep inWestern history, that seeks to protect an indi
vidual's autonomy and dignity against coercion, whatever the source?
state, church, or society. The term marries two closely connected ideas.
It is liberal because it draws on the philosophical strain, beginning with
the Greeks, that emphasizes individual liberty.3 It is constitutionalbccause
it rests on the tradition, beginning with the Romans, of the rule of law.
Constitutional liberalismdeveloped inWestern Europe and theUnited
States as a defenseof the individual's right to life and property, and free
dom of religion and speech. To secure these rights, it emphasized checks
on the power of each branch of government,
equality under the law,
courts and tribunals, and
impartial separation of church and state. Its
canonicalfigures include the poet JohnMilton, the jurist
William Black
stone, statesmen such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and
such asThomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Baron
philosophers
deMontesquieu, John Stuart Mill, and Isaiah Berlin. In almost all of its
variants, constitutional liberalism argues that human beings have certain
natural (or "inalienable") rights and that governments must accept a
basic law, limiting its own powers, that secures them. Thus in 1215 at
Runnymede, England's barons forced the king to abide by the settled
and customary law of the land. In the American colonies these laws were
made explicit, and in 1638 the town of Hartford adopted the firstwritten
constitution in modern history. In the 1970s,Western nations codified
standards ofbehavior for regimes across the globe. The Magna Carta, the
Fundamental of Connecticut,
Orders the American Constitution, and
the Helsinki Final Act are all expressions of constitutional liberalism.
THE ROAD TO LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Since 1945Western governments have, for the most part, embodied

both democracy and constitutional liberalism. Thus it is difficult
to imagine the two apart, in the form of either illiberal democracy
or liberal autocracy. In fact both have existed in the past and per
sist in the present. Until the twentieth century, most countries in
3The term "liberal" is used here in its older, sense, now often called classical
European
today the word has come to mean
liberalism. In America something quite different,
namely policies upholding the modern welfare state.
[26] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 76No. 6

Western Europe
were liberal autocracies or, at best, semi-democ
racies. The franchise was tightly restricted, and elected legislatures
had little power. In 1830 Great Britain, in some ways the most
democratic nation, allowed barely 2 percent of its pop
European
ulation to vote for one house of Parlia- _
ment; that figure rose to 7 percent after
Democracy does not
1867 and reached around 40 percent in the
1880s. Only in the late 1940s did most necessarily bring
Western countries become full-fledged about constitutional
democracies, with adult suffrage.
universal
But one hundred years earlier, by the late liberalism.
1840s, most of them had adopted impor
tant aspects of constitutional rule of law, private
liberalism?the
property rights, and increasingly, separated powers and free speech
and assembly. For much of modern history, what characterized
governments in Europe and North America, and differentiated
them from those around the world, was not but consti
democracy
tutional liberalism. The "Western model" is best symbolized not
mass but the impartial judge.
by the plebiscite
The recent history of East Asia follows the Western itinerary.
After brief flirtations with democracy afterWorld War II, most East
Asian regimes turned authoritarian. Over time they moved from
autocracy to liberalizing autocracy, and, in some cases, toward liber
alizing semi-democracy.4 Most of the regimes in East Asia remain
with patriarchs or one-party systems that
only semi-democratic,
make their elections ratifications of power rather than genuine con
tests. But these regimes have accorded their citizens a
widening
sphere of economic, civil, religious, and limited political rights. As in
theWest, liberalization in East Asia has included economic liber
alization, which is crucial in promoting both growth and liberal
democracy. Historically, the factors most closely associated with full
are a and a high
fledged liberal democracies capitalism, bourgeoisie,
Indonesia, and Malaysia are of autocracies, while

Singapore, examples liberalizing
South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand are liberal semi-democracies. Both however,
groups,
are more liberal than are democratic, which is also true of the liberal
they region's only
democracy, Japan; Papua New Guinea, and to a lesser extent the Philippines, are the
only examples of illiberal democracy in East Asia.

Fareed Zakaria
per capita gnp. Today sEast Asian governments are amix of

democracy,
liberalism, capitalism, oligarchy, and corruption?much likeWestern
governments circa 1900.
Constitutional liberalism hasled to democracy, but democracy
does not seem to bring constitutional liberalism. In contrast to the
Western and East Asian paths, during the last two decades in Latin
America, Africa, and parts of Asia, dictatorships with little back
ground in constitutional liberalism have given way to democracy.
The results are not encouraging. In the western hemisphere, with
a 1993
elections having been held in every country except Cuba,
study by the scholar Larry Diamond determined that 10 of the 22
principal Latin American countries "have levels of human rights
abuse that are with the consolidation of [liberal]
incompatible
democracy."5 In Africa, democratization has been extraordinarily
rapid. Within six months in 1990 much of Francophone Africa lifted
its ban on multiparty politics. Yet although elections have been held
in most of the 45 sub-Saharan states since 1991 (18 in 1996 alone),
there have been setbacks for freedom in many countries. One of
Africa smost careful observers, Michael Chege, surveyed of the wave
democratization and drew the lesson that the continent had "overem
elections . . . and the
phasized multiparty correspondingly neglected
basic tenets of liberal governance." In Central Asia, elections, even
when reasonably free, as in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakst?n, have resulted
in strong executives, weak legislatures and judiciaries, and few civil
and economic liberties. In the Islamic world, from the Palestinian
Authority
to Iran to Pakistan, democratization has led to an increasing
role for theocratic politics, eroding long-standing traditions of secu
larism and tolerance. In many parts of that world, such as Tunisia,
Morocco, Egypt, and some of the Gulf States, were elections to be
held tomorrow, the resulting regimes would almost certainly be more
illiberal than the ones now in place.
of the countries of Central on the other hand,
Many Europe,
have moved from communism to liberal
successfully democracy,
5
Diamond, in Latin America," in Tom Farer, ed., Beyond Sover
Larry "Democracy
a
eignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in World of Sovereign States, Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996, p. 73.

having gone through the same phase of liberalization without

as other countries did during the nineteenth
democracy European
century. Indeed, the Austro-Hungarian to which most
empire,
was a classic liberal autocracy. Even outside the
belonged, Europe,
scientist Myron Weiner a
political detected striking connection
between a constitutional past and a liberal democratic present. He
out that, as of 1983, in the Third
pointed "every single country
World that emerged from colonial rule since the Second World
War with a population of at least one million (and almost all the
smaller colonies as well) with a continuous democratic experience
is a former British colony."6 British rule meant not
democracy?
colonialism is by definition undemocratic?but constitutional lib
eralism. Britain's legacy of law and administration has proved
more beneficial than France's policy of enfranchising some of its
colonial populations.
While liberal autocracies existed in the past, can one
may have
a
imagine them today? Until recently, small but powerful example
flourished off the Asian mainland?Hong Kong. For 156 years, until
was ruled by the British Crown through an
July 1,1997, Hong Kong
never held a
appointed governor general. Until 1991 it had meaningful
election, but its government epitomized constitutional liberalism, pro
tecting its citizens' basic rights and administering a fair court system
and bureaucracy. A September 8,1997, editorial on the island s future
in The Post was titled ominously, "Undoing Hong Kong's
Washington
Democracy." Actually, Hong Kong has precious little democracy to
undo; what it has is a framework of rights and laws. Small islands may
not hold much
practical significance in today s world, but they do
one
help weigh the relative value of democracy and constitutional lib
eralism. Consider, for example, the question of where you would
rather live, Haiti, an illiberal or a liberal semi
democracy, Antigua,
democracy. Your choice would probably relate not to the weather,
which is pleasant in both, but to the political climate, which is not.
6MyronWeiner, "Empirical Democratic Theory," inMyron Weiner and Ergun

Ozbudun, eds., Competitive Elections inDeveloping Countries, Durham: Duke Univer
sity Press, 1987, p. 20. Today there are functioning democracies in the Third World that
are not former British colonies, but the majority of the former are the latter.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [2 9 ]

Fareed Zakaria
ABSOLUTE SOVEREIGNTY
John Stuart Mill opened his classic On Liberty by noting that

as countries became to believe that "too
democratic, people tended
much importance had been attached to the limitation of power itself.
. was
. a response interests were opposed
That. against rulers whose
to those of the
people." Once the people were themselves in charge,
caution was unnecessary. "The nation did not need to be protected
own will." As if
against its confirming Mill's fears, consider the words
of Alexandr Lukashenko after being elected president of Belarus with
an in a free election in 1994, when asked
overwhelming majority
about limiting his powers: "There will be no I am of the
dictatorship.
am to
people, and I going be for the people."
The tension between constitutional liberalism and democracy cen
ters on the scope of authority. Constitutional liberalism is
governmental
about the limitation of power, democracy about its accumulation and
use. For this reason, many and nineteenth-century liberals
eighteenth-
saw in a force that could undermine
democracy liberty. James Madison
a
explained in The Federalist that "the danger of oppression" in democ
racy came from "the majority of the community." Tocqueville warned of
the "tyranny of the majority," writing, "The very essence of democratic
government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the majority."
The tendency for a democratic government to believe it has absolute
sovereignty (that is, power) can result in the centralization of author

often extraconstitutional means and with results. Over the
ity, by grim
last decade, elected governments to represent the
claiming people
have steadily encroached on the powers and rights of other elements
in society, a usurpation that is both horizontal (from other branches
of the national government) and vertical (from regional and local
as well as and other nongovernmental
authorities private businesses
groups). Lukashenko and Peru's Alberto Fujimori are only the worst
the
examples of this practice. (While Fujimori's actions?disbanding
legislature and suspending the constitution, among others?make it
difficult to call his regime democratic, it isworth noting that he won
two elections and was extremely popular until recently.) Even a bona
fide reformer like Carlos Menem has passed close to 300 presidential
decrees in his eight years in office, about three times as many as all
FOREIGN AFFAIRS -Volume 6No. 6

[30] j

to
previous Argentinean presidents put
to 1853.
gether, going back Kyrgyzstan's
Askar Akayev, elected with 60 percent
of the vote, proposed enhancing his
powers in a referendum that passed
in 1996. His new powers include
easily
appointing all top officials except the
can dis
prime minister, although he
solve parliament if it turns down three
of his nominees for the latter post.
Horizontal usurpation, usually by
is more obvious, but ver
presidents,
tical usurpation is more common.
Over the last three decades, the Indian
government has routinely disbanded
state legislatures on
flimsy grounds,
placing regions under New Delhi's
direct rule. In a less dramatic but typical move, the elected govern
ment of the Central African Republic recently ended the long
of its university system, making it part of
standing independence
the central state apparatus.
is particularly widespread in Latin America and the
Usurpation
states of the former Soviet Union, perhaps because both regions
tend to produce strong leaders
mostly have presidencies. These systems
who believe that they speak for the people?even when they have
been elected by no more than a plurality. (As Juan Linz points out,
Salvador Allende was elected to the Chilean presidency in 1970 with
a
only 36 percent of the
vote. In similar circumstances, prime minister
a
would have had to share power in coalition government.) Presidents
senior party figures, main
appoint cabinets of cronies, rather than
on their power. And when their views
taining few internal checks
conflict with those of the legislature, or even the courts, presidents
tend to "go to the nation," bypassing the dreary tasks of bargaining
and coalition-building. While scholars debate the merits of presidential
versus forms of government, can occur
parliamentary usurpation
under either, absent well-developed alternate centers of power such as
strong legislatures, courts, political parties, regional governments, and
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [ 31 ]

Fareed Zakaria
independent universities and media. Latin America actually combines

presidential systems with proportional representation, producing
populist leaders and multiple parties?an unstable combination.
Many Western governments and scholars have encouraged the cre
ation of strong and centralized states in the Third World. Leaders in
these countries have argued that they need the authority to break down
feudalism, split entrenched coalitions, override vested interests, and
to chaotic societies. But this confuses the need for a
bring order legiti
mate government with that for a powerful one. Governments that are
seen as can
legitimate usually maintain order and pursue tough policies,
albeit slowly, by building coalitions. After all, few claim that govern
ments in
developing countries should not have adequate police powers;
the trouble comes from all the other political, social, and economic
powers that they accumulate. In crises like civil wars, constitutional
governments might not be able to rule effectively, but the alternative?
states with vast security apparatuses that suspend constitutional
neither order nor
rights?has usually produced good government.
More often, such states have become some
predatory, maintaining
order but also arresting opponents, muzzling dissent, nationalizing
industries, and confiscating property. While anarchy has its dangers,
the greatest threats to human liberty and happiness in this century have
been caused not by disorder but by brutally strong, centralized states,
like Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Maoist China. The Third
World is littered with the bloody handiwork of strong states.
Historically, unchecked centralization has been the enemy of liberal
increased in Europe over the
democracy. As political participation
nineteenth century, itwas accommodated smoothly in countries such
as and Sweden, where medieval assemblies, local govern
England
ments, and regional councils had remained strong. Countries like
France and Prussia, on the other hand, where the monarchy had effec
tively centralized power (both horizontally and vertically), often ended
It is not a coincidence that in twentieth
up illiberal and undemocratic.
century Spain, the beachhead of liberalism lay inCatalonia, for centuries
a
doggedly independent and autonomous region. In America, the
presence of a rich variety of institutions?state, local, and private?made
itmuch easier to accommodate the rapid and large extensions in suffrage
that took place in the early nineteenth century. Arthur Schlesinger Sr.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS -Volume 76No. 6

[32]

has documented how, during Amer
ica's first 50 years, virtually every
state, interest group and faction
tried toweaken and even break up
the federal government.7 More
recently, India's semi-liberal
democracy has survived because
of, not despite, its strong regions
and varied languages, cultures,
and even castes. The point is log
ical, even tautological: pluralism
in the past helps ensure political
pluralism in the present.

ago, politicians in
Fifty years
the developing world wanted ex
to
traordinary powers implement
then-fashionable economic doc
trines, like nationalization of in
dustries. Today their successors
want similar powers to privatize
those very industries. Menem's
for his methods is
justification
that they are desperately needed
to enact
tough economic reforms. I
Similar arguments are made by
Abdal? Bucarem of Ecuador
and by Fujimori. Lending in
stitutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and theWorld
Bank, have been sympathetic to these pleas, and the bond market
has been positively exuberant. But except in emergencies like war,
illiberal means are in the run liberal ends.
long incompatible with
Constitutional government is in fact the key to a successful economic
reform policy. The experience of East Asia and Central Europe sug
as in East Asia, or
gests that when regimes?whether authoritarian,
7Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.,New Viewpoints inAmerican History, New York: Macmil

lan, 1922, pp. 220-40.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS -
November/December 1997 [33]

Fareed Zakaria
liberal democratic, as in Poland, and the Czech Republic?

Hungary,
protect individual rights, including those of property and contract,
and create a framework of law and administration, and
capitalism
a recent at
growth will follow. In speech theWoodrow Wilson Inter
national Center inWashington, explaining what it takes for capitalism
to flourish, Federal Reserve chairman Alan concluded that,
Greenspan
"The p-nidinp- mechanism of a free market
.. is a bill of an
The democratic economy. rights, enforced by
impartial judiciary"
peace is actually the Finally, and perhaps more
important,
liberal peace. power accumulated to do can be used
good
subsequently to do ill.When Fujimori dis
banded parliament, his approval ratings
shot up to their highest ever. But recent
opinion polls suggest that
most of those who once now wish he were
approved of his actions
more constrained. In 1993 Boris Yeltsin (and literally)
famously
attacked the Russian own
parliament, prompted by parliament's
unconstitutional acts. He then the constitutional court,
suspended
dismantled the system of local governments, and fired several
provincial governors. From the war in Chechnya to his economic

programs, Yeltsin has displayed a routine lack of concern for consti
tutional procedures and limits. He may well be a liberal democrat at
heart, but Yeltsin's actions have created a Russian super-presidency.
We can his successor will not abuse it.
only hope
For centuries Western intellectuals have had a tendency to view
constitutional liberalism as a quaint exercise in rule-making, mere for
malism that should take a back seat to battling larger evils in society.
The most to this view remains an
eloquent counterpoint exchange in
Robert Bolt's play A Man For All Seasons. The fiery young William
to battle evil, is
Roper, who yearns exasperated by Sir Thomas Mores
devotion to the law.More gently defends himself.
More: What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get
after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut every law in England to do that!
More: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on
you?where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat?
-
[34] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume76No.6

ETHNIC CONFLICT AND WAR
On December 8,1996, Jack Lang madea dramatic dash to

Belgrade.
The French celebrity politician, formerly minister of culture, had been
tens of thousands
inspired by the student demonstrations involving
aman intellec
against Slobodan Milosevic, Lang and many Western
tuals held responsible for the war in the Balkans. Lang wanted to lend
his moral support to the Yugoslav opposition. The leaders of the move
ment received him in their offices?the philosophy department?only
to boot him out, declare him "an enemy of the Serbs," and order him
to leave the country. It turned out that the students opposed Milosevic
not for starting the war, but for failing to win it.
two common, and often mistaken,
Lang's embarrassment highlights
the forces of democracy are the forces of ethnic
assumptions?that
and of peace. Neither is necessarily true. Mature liberal
harmony
can
democracies usually accommodate ethnic divisions without violence
or terror and live in peace with other liberal democracies. But without
a liberalism, the introduction of democracy
background in constitutional
in divided societies has actually fomented nationalism, ethnic conflict,
and even war. The spate of elections held immediately after the col
were won in the Soviet Union and
lapse of communism Yugoslavia by
nationalist separatists and resulted in the breakup of those countries.
This was not in and of itself bad, since those countries had been bound
together by force. But the rapid secessions, without guarantees, insti

or
tutions, political power for the many minorities living within the
new countries, have caused and, in
spirals of rebellion, repression,
places like Bosnia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, war.
so
Elections require that politicians compete for peoples' votes. In
cieties without strong traditions of multiethnic groups or assimilation,
it is easiest to organize support along racial, ethnic, or religious lines.
Once an ethnic group is in power, it tends to exclude other ethnic
groups. Compromise seems one can on material
impossible; bargain
issues like housing, hospitals, and handouts, but how does one split
the difference on a national religion? Political competition that is so
divisive can into violence. Opposition move
rapidly degenerate
ments, armed rebellions, and coups inAfrica have often been directed
against ethnically based regimes, many of which came to power

Fareed Zakaria
through elections. Surveying the breakdown of African and Asian

democracies in the 1960s, two scholars concluded that democracy "is
an environment of intense ethnic
simply not viable in preferences." Re
cent studies,
particularly of Africa and Central Asia, have confirmed
this pessimism. A distinguished expert on ethnic conflict, Donald
Horowitz, concluded, "In the face of this rather dismal account. . .
of the concrete failures of democracy in divided societies . . . one is
to throw up one's hands. What is the point of holding elec
tempted
tions if all they do in the end is to substitute a Bemba-dominated
a the two equally narrow, or a
regime for Nyanja regime in Zambia,
southern regime for a northern one in Benin, neither incorporating the
other half of the state?"8
Over the past decade, one of the most spirited debates among schol
ars of international relations concerns the "democratic as
peace"?the
sertion that no two modern democracies have gone to war with each
other. The debate raises interesting substantive questions (does the
American Civil War count? do nuclear weapons better explain the
even
peace?) and the statistical findings have raised interesting dissents.
(As the scholar David Spiro points out, given the small number of both
democracies and wars over the last two hundred years, sheer chance
war between democracies. No member of
might explain the absence of
his family has ever won the lottery, yet few offer explanations for this
even if the statistics are correct, what
impressive correlation.) But explains
them? Kant, the original proponent of the democratic peace, contended
that in democracies, those who pay for wars?that is, the public?make
the decisions, so are cautious. But that claim sug
they understandably
are more states.
gests that democracies pacific than other Actually they
aremore warlike, towar more often and with greater intensity than
going
most states. It is only with other democracies that the peace holds.
cause behind this correlation, one
When divining the thing becomes
clear: the democratic peace is actually the liberal peace. Writing in the
8Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth Shepsle, Politics inPlural Societies:A Theory ofDemo
craticInstability, Columbus: Charles E. Merill, pp. 62-92; Donald Horowitz, "Democ
racy inDivided Societies," in Larry Diamond andMark F. Plattner, eds., Nationalism,
Ethnic Conflict andDemocracy, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, pp.
35-55
[36] FOREIGN AFFAIRS 76No. 6

-Volume

eighteenth century, Kant believed that democracies were tyrannical,
and he specifically excluded them from his conception of "republican"
governments, which lived in a zone of peace. Republicanism, for Kant,
meant a of powers, checks and balances, the rule of law,
separation
protection of individual rights, and some level of representation in
to universal
government (though nothing close suffrage). Kant's other
explanations for the "perpetual peace" between republics are all closely
linked to their constitutional and liberal character: amutual respect for
the rights of each other's citizens, a system of checks and balances
no can
assuring that single leader drag his country into war, and classical
liberal economic policies?most importantly, free trade?which create
an that makes war costly and cooperation useful.
interdependence
Michael Doyle, the leading scholar on the subject, confirms in his 1997
book Ways of War and Peace that without constitutional liberalism,
itself has no
democracy peace-inducing qualities:
Kant distrusted unfettered, democratic and his argu

majoritarianism,
ment offers no support for a claim that all participatory
polities?
democracies?should be peaceful, either in general or between fellow
democracies. Many participatory polities have been non-liberal. For
two thousand years before the modern rule was
age, popular widely
associated with aggressiveness (byThucydides) or imperial success
(by

Fareed Zakaria
Machiavelli) . . .
The decisive preference of [the] median voter might
well include "ethnic cleansing" against other democratic polities.
The distinction between liberaland illiberaldemocracies sheds light

on another
striking statistical correlation. Political scientists Jack Snyder
and Edward Mansfield contend, using an impressive data set, that over
the last 200 years democratizing states went to war more
significantly
often than either stable autocracies or liberal democracies. In countries
not in constitutional liberalism, the rise of democracy often
grounded
brings with it hyper-nationalism and war-mongering. When the politi
cal system is opened up, diverse groups with incompatible interests gain
access to power and press their demands. Political and
military leaders,
who are often embattled remnants of the old authoritarian order, realize
that to succeed that they must masses behind a national cause.
rally the
The result is invariably aggressive rhetoric and policies, which often drag
countries into confrontation and war. Noteworthy examples range from
Ill's France, Wilhelmine and Taisho to those
Napoleon Germany, Japan
in today's newspapers, likeArmenia and Azerbaijan andMilosevic's Ser
bia. The democratic peace, it turns out, has little to do with democracy.
THE AMERICAN PATH
scholar a
An American recently traveled to Kazakst?n on U.S.
mission to help the new
government-sponsored parliament draft its
electoral laws. His counterpart, a senior member of the Kazak parlia
ment, brushed aside the many options the American expert was outlin
ing, saying emphatically, "We want our parliament to be just like your
was horrified, to say some
Congress." The American recalling, "I tried
come
thing other than the three words that had immediately screaming
into my mind: 'No you don't!'" This view is not unusual. Americans in
the democracy business tend to see their own system as an unwieldy con
no other country should put up with. In fact, the
traption that adoption
of some aspects of the American constitutional framework could ame
liorate many of the problems associated with illiberal democracy. The
a fear of accumulated power,
philosophy behind the U.S. Constitution,
is as relevant today as itwas in 1789. Kazakst?n, as it
happens, would be
a strong the American
particularly well-served by parliament?like
Congress?to check the insatiable appetite of its president.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- Volume 76No. 6

[38]

It is odd that the United States is so often the advocate of elections

and plebiscitary democracy abroad. What is distinctive about the
American system is not how democratic it is but rather how unde
mocratic it is, placing as it does multiple constraints on electoral ma
jorities. Of its three branches of government, one?arguably para
mount?is headed by nine unelected men and women with life
tenure. Its Senate is the most upper house in the
unrepresentative
world, with the lone exception of the House of Lords, which is pow
erless. (Every state sends two senators toWashington regardless of
its population?California's 30 million people have as many votes in
the Senate as Arizona's 3.7 million?which means that senators rep
can block any
resenting about 16 percent of the country proposed
law.) Similarly, in legislatures all over the United States, what is strik
not the power of
ing is majorities but that of minorities. To further
check national power, state and local governments are strong and
fiercely battle every federal intrusion onto their turf. Private busi
nesses and other groups, what Tocqueville called
nongovernmental
intermediate associations, make up another stratum within society.
The American system is based on an
avowedly pessimistic concep
tion of human nature, assuming that people cannot be trusted with
power. "Ifmen were angels," Madison famously wrote, "no government
would be necessary." The other model for democratic governance in
on the French Revolution. The French model
Western history is based
places its faith in the goodness of human beings. Once the people are
the source of power, it should be unlimited so that they can create a just
society. (The French revolution, as Lord Acton observed, is not about
the limitation of sovereign power but the abrogation of all intermediate
powers that get in itsway.) Most non-Western countries have embraced
the French model?not least because political elites like the prospect of
empowering the state, since that means empowering themselves?and
most have descended into bouts of chaos,
tyranny, or both. This should
have come as no surprise. After all, since its revolution France itself has
run
through two monarchies, two empires, one
proto-fascist dictator
ship, and five republics.9
9Bernard Lewis, "Why Turkey Is the Only Muslim Democracy," Middle East Quar
March 1994, pp. 47-48.
terly,
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December1997 [3 9 ]

Fareed Zakaria
Of course cultures vary, and different

societies will require
different frameworks of government. This is not a for the whole
plea
sale adoption of the American way but rather for a more variegated
of liberal democracy, one that both parts of
conception emphasizes
that phrase. Before new policies can be adopted, there lies an intel
lectual task of recovering the constitutional liberal tradition, central
to theWestern and to the development of good govern
experience
ment the world. Political progress inWestern
throughout history has
been the result of a growing recognition over the centuries that, as the
Declaration of Independence puts it, human beings have "certain in
alienable rights" and that "it is to secure these rights that governments
are instituted." If a not preserve
democracy does liberty and law, that
a
it is democracy a
is small consolation.
LIBERALIZING FOREIGN POLICY
A proper of constitutional liberalism has a variety of

appreciation
a certain
implications for American foreign policy. First, it suggests
humility. While it is easy to impose elections on a country, it ismore
difficult to push constitutional liberalism on a society. The process of
genuine and democratization

liberalization is gradual and long-term,
in which is only one step.Without
an election
appropriate prepara
tion, itmight even be a false step. Recognizing this, governments and
are a wide
nongovernmental organizations increasingly promoting
array of measures designed to bolster constitutional liberalism in de
veloping countries. The National Endowment for Democracy pro
motes free markets, labor movements, and
independent political
parties. The U.S. Agency for International Development funds inde
In the end, however, elections trump everything.
pendent judiciaries.
If a country holds elections, Washington and the world will tolerate a
as
great deal from the resulting government, they have with Yeltsin,
and Menem. In an age of images and symbols, elections are
Akayev,
easy to capture on film. (How do you televise the rule of law?) But
there is life after elections, especially for the people who live there.
Conversely, the absence of free and fair elections should be viewed
as one flaw, not the definition of tyranny. Elections are an
important
virtue of governance, but they are not the only virtue. Governments
[40] FOREIGN AFFAIRS -Volume

76No. 6

should be judged by yardsticks related to constitutional liberalism as

well. Economic, civil, and religious liberties are at the core of human
autonomy and dignity. If a government with limited democracy
steadily expands these freedoms, it should not be branded a dictator
ship. Despite the limited political choice

they offer, countries like
and Thailand a better environment for
Singapore, Malaysia, provide
the life, liberty, and happiness of their citizens than do either dicta
like and or illiberal democracies like Slovakia or
torships Iraq Libya
Ghana. And the pressures of global capitalism can push the process
of liberalization forward. Markets and morals can work
together.
Even China, which remains a deeply repressive regime, has given its
citizens more autonomy and economic liberty than they have had in
more needs to can even be
generations. Much change before China
called a liberalizing autocracy, but that should not mask the fact that
much has changed.
we need to revive constitutionalism. One effect of the
Finally,
on pure is that little effort is given to cre
overemphasis democracy
ating imaginative constitutions for transitional countries. Consti
as itwas
tutionalism, understood by its greatest eighteenth century
exponents, such as and Madison, is a
Montesquieu complicated
system of checks and balances to prevent the accumula
designed
tion of power and the abuse of office. This is done not by simply
writing up a list of rights but by constructing a system in which
government will not violate those rights. Various groups must be

included and empowered because, asMadison "ambi
explained,
tion must be made to counteract ambition." Constitutions were
also meant to tame the passions of the public, creating not simply
democratic but also deliberative government. Unfortunately, the
rich variety of unelected bodies, indirect voting, federal arrange
ments, and checks and balances that characterized so many of the
formal and informal constitutions of Europe are now
regarded
with suspicion. What could be called the Weimar syndrome?
named after interwar Germany's beautifully constructed constitu
tion, which failed to avert fascism?has made people regard con
stitutions as that cannot make much difference.
simply paperwork
(As if any political system in Germany would have easily weath
ered military defeat, social revolution, the Great Depression, and
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [ 41 ]

Fareed Zakaria
hyperinflation.) Procedures that inhibit direct democracy are seen

as inauthentic, the voice of the people. Today around the
muzzling
world we see variations on the same
majoritarian theme. But the
trouble with these winner-take-all systems is that, in most democ
ratizing countries, the winner really does take all.
democracy's discontents
We live in a democraticage. Through much of human history the

to an individual's life, came from the ab
danger liberty and happiness
solutism of monarchies, the dogma of churches, the terror of dicta
torships, and the iron grip of totalitarianism. Dictators and a few

are
straggling totalitarian regimes still persist, but increasingly they
anachronisms in aworld of global markets, information, and media.
There are no longer respectable alternatives to democracy; it is part
of the fashionable attire of modernity. Thus the problems of gover
nance in the 21st century will
likely be problems within democracy.
This makes them more difficult to handle, wrapped as
they
are in the
mantle of legitimacy.
Illiberal democracies gain legitimacy, and thus strength, from
the fact that they are reasonably democratic. Conversely, the
greatest danger that illiberal democracy poses?other than to its
own that itwill discredit liberal democracy itself, cast
people?is
ing
a shadow on democratic governance. This would not be un
wave of
precedented. Every democracy has been followed by set
backs in which the system was seen as
inadequate and new
alternatives were sought by ambitious leaders and restless masses.
The last such period of disenchantment, in Europe during the in
terwar years, was seized upon by demagogues, many of whom
were
initially popular and even elected. Today, in the face of a
spreading virus of illiberalism, the most useful role that the inter
national community, and most importantly the United States, can
for new lands to democratize and
play is?instead of searching
new to hold elections?to consolidate democracy where it
places
has taken root and to encourage the gradual development of con
stitutional liberalism across the without con
globe. Democracy
stitutional liberalism is not simply inadequate, but dangerous,

bringing with it the erosion of liberty, the abuse of power, ethnic

divisions, and even war. Eighty years ago, Woodrow Wilson took
America into the twentieth century with a to make the
challenge,
world safe for democracy. As we
approach the next century, our
task is to make democracy safe for the world.?
Theories of International The Internationalization of

Regimes Environmental Protection
Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Miranda A. Schreurs and
Volker Rittberger Elizabeth Economy, Editors
This book describes and critically examines the three Seven case studies show how the internationali
original
most theories of international zation of environmental protection efforts is altering
important regimes.
These theories each stress a particular explanatory policy-making processes, policy outcomes, and the
variable: realist theories emphasize state power; neo effectiveness of policy implementation. At the same
liberal theories focus on constellations of interests; and time, the authors argue, the vital role of sub-state
theories are concerned with continues to influence the nature of national
cognitivist knowledge politics
and ideas. The authors conclude the responses to international environmental
by exploring problems.
for progress within this dynamic field by Contributors: Miranda Schreurs, Elizabeth Economy, Kal
prospects
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November/December
FOREIGN AFFAIRS- 1997 [43]

Facing Up to the Democratic Recession
Larry Diamond
Journal of Democracy, Volume 26, Number 1, January 2015, pp. 141-155

(Article)
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/jod.2015.0009
For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jod/summary/v026/26.1.diamond.html
Access provided by KOC University (15 Jul 2015 15:51 GMT)

Facing Up to the
Democratic Recession
Larry Diamond
Larry Diamond is founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, se-

nior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute
for International Studies at Stanford University, and director of Stan-
ford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.
The year 2014 marked the fortieth anniversary of Portugal’s Revolu-

tion of the Carnations, which inaugurated what Samuel P. Huntington
dubbed the “third wave” of global democratization. Any assessment of
the state of global democracy today must begin by recognizing—even
marveling at—the durability of this historic transformation. When the
third wave began in 1974, only about 30 percent of the world’s indepen-
dent states met the criteria of electoral democracy—a system in which
citizens, through universal suffrage, can choose and replace their leaders
in regular, free, fair, and meaningful elections.1 At that time, there were
only about 46 democracies in the world. Most of those were the liberal
democracies of the rich West, along with a number of small island states
that had been British colonies. Only a few other developing democracies
existed—principally, India, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezu-
ela, Israel, and Turkey.
In the subsequent three decades, democracy had a remarkable global
run, as the number of democracies essentially held steady or expanded
every year from 1975 until 2007. Nothing like this continous growth in
democracy had ever been seen before in the history of the world. While
a number of these new “democracies” were quite illiberal—in some
cases, so much so that Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way regard them as
“competitive authoritarian” regimes2—the positive three-decade trend
was paralleled by a similarly steady and significant expansion in levels
of freedom (political rights and civil liberties, as measured annually by
Freedom House). In 1974, the average level of freedom in the world
stood at 4.38 (on the two seven-point scales, where 1 is most free and
7 is most repressive). It then gradually improved during the 1970s and
Journal of Democracy Volume 26, Number 1 January 2015

© 2015 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press
142 Journal of Democracy
1980s, though it did not cross below the 4.0 midpoint until the fall of
the Berlin Wall, after which it improved to 3.85 in 1990. In 25 of the 32
years between 1974 and 2005, average freedom levels improved in the
world, peaking at 3.22 in 2005.
And then, around 2006, the expansion of freedom and democracy in
the world came to a prolonged halt. Since 2006, there has been no net
expansion in the number of electoral democracies, which has oscillated
between 114 and 119 (about 60 percent of the world’s states). As we see
in Figure 1, the number of both electoral and liberal democracies began
to decline after 2006 and then flattened out.3 Since 2006, the average
level of freedom in the world has also deteriorated slightly, leveling off
at about 3.30.
There are two ways to view these empirical trends. One is to see
them as constituting a period of equilibrium—freedom and democ-
racy have not continued gaining, but neither have they experienced
net declines. One could even celebrate this as an expression of the
remarkable and unexpected durability of the democratic wave. Given
that democracy expanded to a number of countries where the objective
conditions for sustaining it are unfavorable, due either to poverty (for
example, in Liberia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone) or to strategic pres-
sures (for example, in Georgia and Mongolia), it is impressive that
reasonably open and competitive political systems have survived (or
revived) in so many places. As a variant of this more benign interpreta-
tion, Levitsky and Way argue in this issue of the Journal that democ-
racy never actually expanded as widely as Freedom House perceived
in the first place. Thus, they contend, many of the seeming failures of
democracy in the last ten to fifteen years were really deteriorations or
hardenings of what had been from the beginning authoritarian regimes,
however competitive.
Alternatively, one can view the last decade as a period of at least
incipient decline in democracy. To make this case, we need to examine
not only the instability and stagnation of democracies, but also the incre-
mental decline of democracy in what Thomas Carothers has termed the
“gray zone” countries (which defy easy classification as to whether or
not they are democracies),4 the deepening authoritarianism in the non-
democracies, and the decline in the functioning and self-confidence of
the world’s established, rich democracies. This will be my approach in
what follows.
The debate about whether there has been a decline in democracy
turns to some extent on how we count it. It is one of the great and prob-
ably inescapable ironies of scholarly research that the boom in compara-
tive democratic studies has been accompanied by significant disagree-
ment over how to define and measure democracy. I have never felt that
there was—or could be—one right and consensual answer to this eternal
conceptual challenge. Most scholars of democracy have agreed that it
Larry Diamond 143
Figure 1—The Growth of Democracies in the World,

1974–2013
70%
61%
58% 59%
60% 57%
50% 45%
40% 37%
34%
41% 40%
29%
30% 35%
33%
30%
20% 26%
24%
21%
10%
0%
Liberal Democracies Electoral Democracies
makes sense to classify regimes categorically—and thus to determine

which regimes are democracies and which are not. But democracy is in
many ways a continuous variable. Its key components—such as free-
dom of multiple parties and candidates to campaign and contest; opposi-
tion access to mass media and campaign finance; inclusiveness of suf-
frage; fairness and neutrality of electoral administration; and the extent
to which electoral victors have meaningful power to rule—vary on a
continuum (as do other dimensions of the quality of democracy, such as
civil liberties, rule of law, control of corruption, vigor of civil society,
and so on). This continuous variation forces coders to make difficult
judgments about how to classify regimes that fall into the gray zone of
ambiguity, where multiparty electoral competition is genuine and vig-
orous but flawed in some notable ways. No system of multiparty com-
petition is perfectly fair and open. Some multiparty electoral systems
clearly do not meet the test of democracy. Others have serious defects
that nevertheless do not negate their overall democratic character. Thus
hard decisions must often be made about how to weight imperfections
and where to draw the line.
Most approaches to classifying regimes (as democracies or not) rely
on continuous measurement of key variables (such as political rights,
in the case of the Polity scale, or both political rights and civil liber-
ties, in the case of Freedom House), along with a somewhat arbitrary
cutoff point for separating democracies from nondemocracies. 5 My
own method has been to accept the Freedom House coding decisions
except where I find persuasive contradictory evidence. This has led to
my counting two to five fewer democracies than Freedom House does
for most years since 1989; for some years, the discrepancy is much
larger.6
The Democratic Recession: Breakdowns and Erosions

The world has been in a mild but protracted democratic recession
since about 2006. Beyond the lack of improvement or modest erosion of
global levels of democracy and freedom, there have been several other
causes for concern. First, there has been a significant and, in fact, accel-
erating rate of democratic breakdown. Second, the quality or stability of
democracy has been declining in a number of large and strategically im-
portant emerging-market countries, which I call “swing states.” Third,
authoritarianism has been deepening, including in big and strategically
important countries. And fourth, the established democracies, beginning
with the United States, increasingly seem to be performing poorly and
to lack the will and self-confidence to promote democracy effectively
abroad. I explore each of these in turn.
First, let us look at rates of democratic breakdown. Between 1974 and
the end of 2014, 29 percent of all the democracies in the world broke
down (among non-Western democracies, the rate was 35 percent). In the
first decade and a half of this new century, the failure rate (17.6 percent)
has been substantially higher than in the preceding fifteen-year period
(12.7 percent). Alternatively, if we break the third wave up into its four
component decades, we see a rising incidence of democratic failure per
decade since the mid-1980s. The rate of democratic failure, which had
been 16 percent in the first decade of the third wave (1974–83), fell to
8 percent in the second decade (1984–93), but then climbed to 11 per-
cent in the third decade (1994–2003), and most recently to 14 percent
(2004–13). (If we include the three failures of 2014, the rate rises to over
16 percent.)
Since 2000, I count 25 breakdowns of democracy in the world—not
only through blatant military or executive coups, but also through subtle
and incremental degradations of democratic rights and procedures that
finally push a democratic system over the threshold into competitive au-
thoritarianism (see Table). Some of these breakdowns occurred in quite
low-quality democracies; yet in each case, a system of reasonably free
and fair multiparty electoral competition was either displaced or de-
graded to a point well below the minimal standards of democracy.
One methodological challenge in tracking democratic breakdowns
is to determine a precise date or year for a democratic failure that re-
sults from a long secular process of systemic deterioration and executive
strangulation of political rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law. No
serious scholar would consider Russia today a democracy. But many
believe that it was an electoral democracy (however rough and illib-
eral) under Boris Yeltsin. If we score 1993 as the year when democ-
Larry Diamond 145
Table—Breakdowns of Democracy, 2000–2014

Year of Year of
Country Type of Breakdown
Breakdown Return
2000 Fiji – Military coup
2000 Russia – Executive degradation, violation of opposition rights
2001 Central Af. Rep. – Military rebellion, violence, human rights abuses
Executive degradation, violation of opposition rights
2002 Guinea-Bissau 2005
(military coup the following year)
2002 Nepal 2013 Rising political instability, monarchical coup
2004 Venezuela – Executive degradation, violation of opposition rights
2005 Thailand 2011 Military coup, then military constraint
2006 Solomon Islands – Decline of democratic process
2007 Bangladesh 2008 Military “soft coup”
2007 Philippines 2010 Executive degradation
2007 Kenya – Electoral fraud and executive abuse
2008 Georgia 2012 Electoral fraud and executive abuse
2009 Honduras 2013 Military intervention
Unconstitutional assumption of power by opposition;
2009 Madagascar –
suspension of elected parliament
Presidential dissolution of Constitutional Court and
2009 Niger 2011
National Assembly to extend presidential rule
2010 Burundi – Electoral fraud, opposition boycott, political closure
2010 Sri Lanka – Executive degradation
Military intervention, weakening civilian control,
2010 Guinea-Bissau –
deteriorating rule of law
2012 Maldives – Forcible removal of democratically elected president
2012 Mali 2014 Military coup
2011 Nicaragua – Executive degradation
Electoral fraud (parliamentary elections), executive
2012 Ukraine 2014
abuse
2014 Turkey – Executive degradation, violation of opposition rights
2014 Bangladesh – Breakdown of electoral process
2014 Thailand – Military coup
racy emerged in Russia (as Freedom House does), then what year do
we identify as marking the end of democracy? In this case (and many
others), there is no single obvious event—like Peruvian president Al-
berto Fujimori’s 1992 autogolpe, dissolving Congress and seizing un-
constitutional powers—to guide the scoring decision. I postulate that
Russia’s political system fell below the minimum conditions of electoral
democracy during the year 2000, as signaled by the electoral fraud that
gave Vladimir Putin a dubious first-ballot victory and the executive deg-
radation of political and civic pluralism that quickly followed. (Freedom
House dates the failure to 2005.)
The problem has continuing and quite contemporary relevance. For
a number of years now, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP) has been gradually eroding democratic pluralism and freedom in
the country. The overall political trends have been hard to characterize,
because some of the AKP’s changes have made Turkey more democratic
by removing the military as an autonomous veto player in politics, ex-
tending civilian control over the military, and making it harder to ban
political parties that offend the “deep state” structures associated with
the intensely secularist legacy of Kemal Atatürk. But the AKP has grad-
ually entrenched its own political hegemony, extending partisan control
over the judiciary and the bureaucracy, arresting journalists and intimi-
dating dissenters in the press and academia, threatening businesses with
retaliation if they fund opposition parties, and using arrests and prosecu-
tions in cases connected to alleged coup plots to jail and remove from
public life an implausibly large number of accused plotters.
This has coincided with a stunning and increasingly audacious con-
centration of personal power by Turkey’s longtime prime minister Re-
cep Tayyip Erdo¢gan, who was elected president in August 2014. The
abuse and personalization of power and the constriction of competitive
space and freedom in Turkey have been subtle and incremental, mov-
ing with nothing like the speed of Putin in the early 2000s. But by now,
these trends appear to have crossed a threshold, pushing the country
below the minimum standards of democracy. If this has happened, when
did it happen? Was it in 2014, when the AKP further consolidated its
hegemonic grip on power in the March local-government elections and
the August presidential election? Or was it, as some liberal Turks insist,
several years before, as media freedoms were visibly diminishing and
an ever-wider circle of alleged coup plotters was being targeted in the
highly politicized Ergenekon trials?
A similar problem exists for Botswana, where a president (Ian Khama)
with a career military background evinces an intolerance of opposition
and distaste for civil society beyond anything seen previously from the
long-ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Increasing political vio-
lence and intimidation—including assaults on opposition politicians, the
possible murder of a leading opposition candidate three months before
the October 2014 parliamentary elections, and the apparent involvement
of the intelligence apparatus in the bullying and coercion of the political
opposition—have been moving the political system in a more authoritar-
ian direction. Escalating pressure on the independent media, the brazen
misuse of state television by the BDP, and the growing personalization
and centralization of power by President Khama (as he advances his own
narrow circle of family and friends while splitting the ruling party) are
further signs of the deterioration, if not crisis, of democracy in Botswana.7
Again, Levitsky and Way had argued a number of years ago that Botswana
was not a genuine democracy in the first place.8 Nevertheless, whatever
kind of system it has been in recent decades, “respect for the rule of law
and for established institutions and processes” began to diminish in 1998,
when Khama ascended to the vice-presidency, and it has continued to
decline since 2008, when the former military commander “automatically
succeeded to the presidency.”9
There are no easy and obvious answers to the conundrum of how to
Larry Diamond 147
classify regimes in the gray zone. One can argue about whether these am-
biguous regimes are still democracies—or even if they ever really were.
Those who accept that a democratic breakdown has occurred can argue
about when it took place. But what is beyond argument is that there is a
class of regimes that in the last decade or so have experienced signifi-
cant erosion in electoral fairness, political pluralism, and civic space for
opposition and dissent, typically as a result of abusive executives intent
upon concentrating their personal power and entrenching ruling-party
hegemony. The best-known cases of this since 1999 have been Rus-
sia and Venezuela, where populist former military officer Hugo Chávez
(1999–2013) gradually suffocated democratic pluralism during the first
decade of this century. After Daniel Ortega returned to the presidency in
Nicaragua in 2007, he borrowed many pages from Chávez’s authoritar-
ian playbook, and left-populist authoritarian presidents Evo Morales of
Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador have been moving in a similar di-
rection. In their contribution to this issue, Scott Mainwaring and Aníbal
Pérez-Li~nán assert that democratic erosion has occurred since 2000 in
all four of these Latin American countries (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bo-
livia, and Ecuador) as well as in Honduras, with Bolivia, Ecuador, and
Honduras now limping along as “semidemocracies.”
Of the 25 breakdowns since 2000 listed in the Table, eighteen have
occurred after 2005. Only eight of these 25 breakdowns came as a result
of military intervention (and of those eight, only four took the form of
a conventional, blatant military coup, as happened twice in Thailand).
Two other cases (Nepal and Madagascar) saw democratically elected
rulers pushed out of power by other nondemocratic forces (the monarch
and the political opposition, respectively). The majority of the break-
downs—thirteen—resulted from the abuse of power and the desecration
of democratic institutions and practices by democratically elected rul-
ers. Four of these took the form of widespread electoral fraud or, in the
recent case of Bangladesh, a unilateral change in the rules of electoral
administration (the elimination of the practice of a caretaker govern-
ment before the election) that tilted the electoral playing field and trig-
gered an opposition boycott. The other nine failures by executive abuse
involved the more gradual suffocation of democracy by democratically
elected executives (though that too was occurring in several of the in-
stances of electoral fraud, such as Ukraine under President Viktor Yanu-
kovych [2010–14]). Overall, nearly one in every five democracies since
the turn of this century has failed.
The Decline of Freedom and the Rule of Law

Separate and apart from democratic failure, there has also been a
trend of declining freedom in a number of countries and regions since
2005. The most often cited statistic in this regard is the Freedom House
finding that in each of the eight consecutive years from 2006 through
2013 more countries declined in freedom than improved. In fact, after
a post–Cold War period in which the balance was almost always highly
favorable—with improvers outstripping the decliners by a ratio of two
to one (or greater)—the balance simply inverted beginning in 2006. But
this does not tell the whole story.
Two important elements are noteworthy, and they are both especially
visible in Africa. First, the declines have tended to crystallize over time.
Thus, if we compare freedom scores at the end of 2005 and the end of
2013, we see that 29 of the 49 sub-Saharan African states (almost 60
percent) declined in freedom, while only fifteen (30 percent) improved
and five remained unchanged. Moreover, twenty states in the region saw
a decline in political rights, civil liberties, or both that was substantial
enough to register a change on the seven-point scales (while only eleven
states saw such a visible improvement). The larger states in sub-Saharan
Africa (those with a population of more than ten million) did a bit better,
but not much: Freedom deteriorated in thirteen of the 25 of them, and
improved in only eight.
Another problem is that the pace of decay in democratic institutions
is not always evident to outside observers. In a number of countries
where we take democracy for granted, such as South Africa, we should
not. In fact, there is not a single country on the African continent where
democracy is firmly consolidated and secure—the way it is, for exam-
ple, in such third-wave democracies as South Korea, Poland, and Chile.
In the global democracy-promotion community, few actors are paying
attention to the growing signs of fragility in the more liberal developing
democracies, not to mention the more illiberal ones.
Why have freedom and democracy been regressing in many coun-
tries? The most important and pervasive answer is, in brief, bad gover-
nance. The Freedom House measures of political rights and civil liber-
ties both include subcategories that directly relate to the rule of law and
transparency (including corruption). If we remove these subcategories
from the Freedom House political-rights and civil-liberties scores and
create a third distinct scale with the rule-of-law and transparency scores,
the problems become more apparent. African states (like most others in
the world) perform considerably worse on the rule of law and transpar-
ency than on political rights and civil liberties.10 Moreover, rule of law
and political rights have both declined perceptibly across sub-Saharan
Africa since 2005, while civil liberties have oscillated somewhat more.
These empirical trends are shown in Figure 2, which presents the Free-
dom House data for these three reconfigured scales as standardized
scores, ranging from 0 to 1.11
The biggest problem for democracy in Africa is controlling corrup-
tion and abuse of power. The decay in governance has been visible even
in the best-governed African countries, such as South Africa, which suf-
Larry Diamond 149
Figure 2—Freedom and Governance Trends in Africa,

2005–13
Political Rights Civil Liberties Transparency and Rule of Law
fered a steady decline in its score on rule of law and transparency (from
.79 to .63) between 2005 and 2013. And as more and more African states
become resource-rich with the onset of a second African oil boom, the
quality of governance will deteriorate further. This has already begun
to happen in one of Africa’s most liberal and important democracies,
Ghana.
The problem is not unique to Africa. Every region of the world scores
worse on the standardized scale of transparency and the rule of law than
it does on either political rights or civil liberties. In fact, transparency
and the rule of law trail the other two scales even more dramatically in
Latin America, postcommunist Europe, and Asia than they do in Af-
rica (Figure 3). Many democracies in lower-income and even middle- or
upper-middle-income countries (notably, Argentina) struggle with the
resurgence of what Francis Fukuyama calls “neo-patrimonial” tenden-
cies.12 Leaders who think that they can get away with it are eroding
democratic checks and balances, hollowing out institutions of account-
ability, overriding term limits and normative restraints, and accumulat-
ing power and wealth for themselves and their families, cronies, clients,
and parties.
In the process, they demonize, intimidate, and victimize (and occa-
sionally even jail or murder) opponents who get in their way. Space for
opposition parties, civil society, and the media is shrinking, and interna-
tional support for them is drying up. Ethnic, religious, and other identity
cleavages polarize many societies that lack well-designed democratic
institutions to manage those cleavages. State structures are too often
weak and porous—unable to secure order, protect rights, meet the most
basic social needs, or rise above corrupt, clientelistic, and predatory im-
Figure 3—Political Rights, Civil Liberties, and

Transparency/Rule of Law, 2013
1
0.9 0.86
0.83
0.8
0.73 0.72
0.7 0.66
0.6
0.52 0.52
0.50 0.49
0.5 0.46
0.39 0.39
0.4 0.36 0.35
0.30
0.28
0.3
0.23 0.23
0.2
0.1
0
CEE ( + Baltics)
CEE+Baltics LAC
LAC Asia
Asia Africa
Africa FSU ( - Baltics) Arab
FSU-Baltics ArabStates
States
Political Rights
Political Rights Civil
Civil Liberties
Liberties Transparency & RoL
Transparency and Rule of Law
Source: Freedom House raw data for Freedom in the World, 2013.
pulses. Democratic institutions such as parties and parliaments are often

poorly developed, and the bureaucracy lacks the policy expertise and,
even more so, the independence, neutrality, and authority to effectively
manage the economy. Weak economic performance and rising inequal-
ity exacerbate the problems of abuse of power, rigging of elections, and
violation of the democratic rules of the game.
The Strategic Swing States

A different perspective on the global state of democracy can be
gleaned from a focus not on regional or global trends, but on the weight-
iest emerging-market countries. These are the ones with large popu-
lations (say, more than fifty million) or large economies (more than
US$200 billion). I count 27 of these (including Ukraine, which does
not quite reach either measure, but is of immense strategic importance).
Twelve of these 27 swing states had worse average freedom scores at the
end of 2013 than they did at the end of 2005. These declines took place
across the board: in fairly liberal democracies (South Korea, Taiwan,
and South Africa); in less liberal democracies (Colombia, Ukraine, In-
donesia, Turkey, Mexico, and Thailand before the 2014 military coup);
and in authoritarian regimes (Ethiopia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia). In
addition, I think three other countries are also less free today than they
were in 2005: Russia, where the noose of repressive authoritarianism
has clearly been tightening since Vladimir Putin returned to the pres-
idency in early 2012; Egypt, where the new military-dominated gov-
Larry Diamond 151
ernment under former general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is more murderous,

controlling, and intolerant than even the Mubarak regime (1981–2011);
and Bangladesh, where (as noted above) democracy broke down early in
2014. Only two countries (Singapore and Pakistan) are freer today (and
only modestly so) than in 2005. Some other countries have at least re-
mained stable. Chile continues to be a liberal-democratic success story;
the Philippines has returned to robust democracy after an authoritar-
ian interlude under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (2001–10); and
Brazil and India have preserved robust democracy, albeit with continu-
ing challenges. But overall, among the 27 (which also include China,
Malaysia, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates) there has been scant
evidence of democratic progress. In terms of democracy, the most im-
portant countries outside the stable democratic West have been either
stagnating or slipping backward.
The Authoritarian Resurgence

An important part of the story of global democratic recession has
been the deepening of authoritarianism. This has taken a number of
forms. In Russia, space for political opposition, principled dissent, and
civil society activity outside the control of the ruling authorities has
been shrinking.13 In China, human-rights defenders and civil society ac-
tivists have faced increasing harassment and victimization.
The (mainly) postcommunist autocracies of the Shanghai Coopera-
tion Organization, centered on the axis of cynical cooperation between
Russia and China, have become much more coordinated and assertive.
Both countries have both been aggressively flexing their muscles in
dealing with their neighbors on territorial questions. And increasingly
they are pushing back against democratic norms by also using instru-
ments of soft power—international media (such as RT, Russia’s slick
24/7 global television “news” channel), China’ssConfucius Institutes,
lavish conferences, and exchange programs—to try to discredit Western
democracies and democracy in general, while promoting their own mod-
els and norms.14 This is part of a broader trend of renewed authoritarian
skill and energy in using state-run media (both traditional and digital)
to air an eclectic mix of proregime narratives, demonized images of dis-
senters, and illiberal, nationalist, and anti-American diatribes.15
African autocrats have increasingly used China’s booming aid and
investment (and the new regional war on Islamist terrorism) as a coun-
terweight to Western pressure for democracy and good governance. And
they have been only too happy to point to China’s formula of rapid
state-led development without democracy to justify their own deepen-
ing authoritarianism. In Venezuela, the vise of authoritarian populism
has tightened and the government’s toleration (or even organization) of
criminal violence to demobilize middle-class opposition has risen. The
“Arab Spring” has imploded in almost every country that it touched save
Tunisia, leaving in most cases even more repressive states or, as in the
case of Libya, hardly a state at all.
The resurgence of authoritarianism over the past eight years has
been quickened by the diffusion of common tools and approaches.
Prominent among these have been laws to criminalize international
flows of financial and technical assistance from democracies to demo-
cratic parties, movements, media, election monitors, and civil society
organizations in authoritarian regimes, as well as broader restrictions
on the ability of NGOs to form and operate and the creation of pseudo-
NGOs to do the bidding (domestically and internationally) of auto-
crats.16 One recent study of 98 countries outside the West found that 51
of them either prohibit or restrict foreign funding of civil society, with
a clear global trend toward tightening control; as a result, international
democracy-assistance flows are dropping precipitously where they are
needed most.17 In addition, authoritarian (and even some democratic)
states are becoming more resourceful, sophisticated, and unapologetic
in suppressing Internet freedom and using cyberspace to frustrate, sub-
vert, and control civil society. 18
Western Democracy in Retreat

Perhaps the most worrisome dimension of the democratic recession
has been the decline of democratic efficacy, energy, and self-confidence
in the West, including the United States. There is a growing sense, both
domestically and internationally, that democracy in the United States
has not been functioning effectively enough to address the major chal-
lenges of governance. The diminished pace of legislation, the vanish-
ing ability of Congress to pass a budget, and the 2013 shutdown of the
federal government are only some of the indications of a political sys-
tem (and a broader body politic) that appears increasingly polarized and
deadlocked. As a result, both public approval of Congress and public
trust in government are at historic lows. The ever-mounting cost of elec-
tion campaigns, the surging role of nontransparent money in politics,
and low rates of voter participation are additional signs of democratic ill
health. Internationally, promoting democracy abroad scores close to the
bottom of the public’s foreign-policy priorities. And the international
perception is that democracy promotion has already receded as an actual
priority of U.S. foreign policy.
The world takes note of all this. Authoritarian state media gleefully
publicize these travails of American democracy in order to discredit de-
mocracy in general and immunize authoritarian rule against U.S. pres-
sure. Even in weak states, autocrats perceive that the pressure is now
off: They can pretty much do whatever they want to censor the media,
crush the opposition, and perpetuate their rule, and Europe and the Unit-
Larry Diamond 153
ed States will swallow it. Meek verbal protests may ensue, but the aid
will still flow and the dictators will still be welcome at the White House
and the Elysée Palace.
It is hard to overstate how important the vitality and self-confidence
of U.S. democracy has been to the global expansion of democracy dur-
ing the third wave. While each democratizing country made its own
transition, pressure and solidarity from the United State and Europe of-
ten generated a significant and even crucial enabling environment that
helped to tip finely balanced situations toward democratic change, and
then in some cases gradually toward democratic consolidation. If this
solidarity is now greatly diminished, so will be the near-term global
prospects for reviving and sustaining democratic progress.
A Brighter Horizon?
Democracy has been in a global recession for most of the last decade,
and there is a growing danger that the recession could deepen and tip
over into something much worse. Many more democracies could fail,
not only in poor countries of marginal strategic significance, but also in
big swing states such as Indonesia and Ukraine (again). There is little
external recognition yet of the grim state of democracy in Turkey, and
there is no guarantee that democracy will return any time soon to Thai-
land or Bangladesh. Apathy and inertia in Europe and the United States
could significantly lower the barriers to new democratic reversals and to
authoritarian entrenchments in many more states.
Yet the picture is not entirely bleak. We have not seen “a third reverse
wave.” Globally, average levels of freedom have ebbed a little bit, but not
calamitously. Most important, there has not been significant erosion in
public support for democracy. In fact, what the Afrobarometer has con-
sistently shown is a gap—in some African countries, a chasm—between
the popular demand for democracy and the supply of it provided by the
regime. This is not based just on some shallow, vague notion that democ-
racy is a good thing. Many Africans understand the importance of politi-
cal accountability, transparency, the rule of law, and restraint of power,
and they would like to see their governments manifest these virtues.
While the performance of democracy is failing to inspire, authori-
tarianism faces its own steep challenges. There is hardly a dictatorship
in the world that looks stable for the long run. The only truly reliable
source of regime stability is legitimacy, and the number of people in the
world who believe in the intrinsic legitimacy of any form of authori-
tarianism is rapidly diminishing. Economic development, globalization,
and the information revolution are undermining all forms of authority
and empowering individuals. Values are changing, and while we should
not assume any teleological path toward a global “enlightenment,” gen-
erally the movement is toward greater distrust of authority and more
desire for accountability, freedom, and political choice. In the coming

two decades, these trends will challenge the nature of rule in China,
Vietnam, Iran, and the Arab states much more than they will in India,
not to mention Europe and the United States. Already, democratization
is visible on the horizon of Malaysia’s increasingly competitive elector-
al politics, and it will come in the next generation to Singapore as well.
The key imperative in the near term is to work to reform and consoli-
date the democracies that have emerged during the third wave—the ma-
jority of which remain illiberal and unstable, if they remain democratic
at all. With more focused, committed, and resourceful international en-
gagement, it should be possible to help democracy sink deeper and more
enduring roots in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, South Af-
rica, and Ghana. It is possible and urgently important to help stabilize the
new democracies in Ukraine and Tunisia (whose success could gradu-
ally generate significant diffusion effects throughout the Arab world). It
might be possible to nudge Thailand and Bangladesh back toward elec-
toral democracy, though ways must be found to temper the awful levels
of party polarization in each country. With time, the electoral authoritar-
ian project in Turkey will discredit itself in the face of mounting corrup-
tion and abuse of power, which are already growing quite serious. And
the oil-based autocracies in Iran and Venezuela will face increasingly
severe crises of economic performance and political legitimacy.
It is vital that democrats in the established democracies not lose faith.
Democrats have the better set of ideas. Democracy may be receding
somewhat in practice, but it is still globally ascendant in peoples’ values
and aspirations. This creates significant new opportunities for demo-
cratic growth. If the current modest recession of democracy spirals into
a depression, it will be because those of us in the established democra-
cies were our own worst enemies.
NOTES
I would like to thank Erin Connors, Emmanuel Ferrario, and Lukas Friedemann for their
excellent research assistance on this article.
1. For an elaboration of this definition, see Larry Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy:
The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (New York: Times Books,
2008), 20–26.
2. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes

After the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); see also their essay
in this issue.
3. I count as liberal democracies all those regimes that receive a score of 1 or 2 (out of
7) on both political rights and civil liberties.
4. Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy

13 (January 2002): 5–21.
Larry Diamond 155
5. Freedom House classifies all the world’s regimes as democracies or not from 1989
to the present based on whether a) they score at least 7 out of 12 on the “electoral process”
dimension of political rights; b) they score at least 20 out of 40 overall on the raw point
scale for political rights; c) their most recent parliamentary and presidential elections were
reasonably free and fair; d) there are no significant hidden sources of power overriding
the elected authorities; and e) there are no recent legal changes abridging future electoral
freedom. In practice, this has led to a somewhat expansive list of democracies—rather too
generous in my view, but at least a plausible “upper limit” of the number of democracies
every year. Levitsky and Way suggest in this issue that a better standard for democracy
would be the Freedom House classification of Free, which requires a minimum average
score of 2.5 on the combined scales of political rights and civil liberties. But I think this
standard excludes many genuine but illiberal democracies.
6. My count of electoral democracies for 1998–2002 was lower than that of Freedom
House by 8 to 9 countries, and in 1999, by 11 countries. For example, I dropped from
this category Georgia in 1992–2002, Ukraine in 1994–2004, Mozambique in 1994–2008,
Nigeria in 1999–2003, Russia in 2001–2004, and Venezuela in 2004–2008.
7. Amy R. Poteete, “Democracy Derailed? Botswana’s Fading Halo,” AfricaPlus, 20

October 2014, http://africaplus.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/democracy-derailed-botswa-
nas-fading-halo/.
8. Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, 20.
9. Kenneth Good, “The Illusion of Democracy in Botswana,” in Larry Diamond and

Marc F. Plattner, eds., Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat, 2nd ed. (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 281.
10. The comparisons here and in Figure 2 are with the reconfigured political-rights
and civil-liberties scales, after the subscales for transparency and rule of law have been
removed (see endnote 11 below).
11. I created the scale of transparency and rule of law by drawing subscales C2 (control
of corruption) and C3 (accountability and transparency) from the political-rights scale and
the four subscales of F (rule of law) from the civil-liberties scale. For the specific items
in these subscales, see the Freedom in the World methodology, www.freedomhouse.org/
report/freedom-world-2014/methodology#.VGww5vR4qcI.
12. Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revo-
lution to the Globalization of Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).
See also his essay in this issue of the Journal of Democracy.
13. On Russia, see Miriam Lanskoy and Elspeth Suthers, “Putin versus Civil Society:
Outlawing the Opposition,” Journal of Democracy 24 (July 2013): 74–87.
14. See Andrew Nathan’s essay “China’s Challenge” on pp. 156–70 of this issue.
15. Christopher Walker and Robert W. Orttung, “Breaking the News: The Role of
State-Run Media,” Journal of Democracy 25 (January 2014): 71–85.
16. Carl Gershman and Michael Allen, “The Assault on Democracy Assistance,” Jour-
nal of Democracy 17 (April 2006): 36–51; William J. Dobson, The Dictator’s Learning
Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2012).
17. Darin Christensen and Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Defunding Dissent: Restrictions on

Aid to NGOs,” Journal of Democracy 24 (April 2013): 77–91.
18. See the essays in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, Liberation Technology:
Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
2012) and the ongoing trailblazing work of the Citizen Lab, https://citizenlab.org/.
A Return to the Iron Fist
Arch Puddington
Journal of Democracy, Volume 26, Number 2, April 2015, pp. 122-138

(Article)
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/jod.2015.0033
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Access provided by KOC University (15 Jul 2015 15:48 GMT)

on 1/30/15. 5,826 words on 2/3/15. Changes accepted per AP email of 2/6/15. PGS created by BK on
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The Freedom House Survey for 2014
A Return to the Iron Fist

Arch Puddington
Arch Puddington is vice-president for research at Freedom House.

For more information on the survey, see the box on p. 124. For the
rankings of individual countries in 2014, see the Table on pp. 126–27.
In a year marked by an explosion of terrorist violence, autocrats’ use of

more brutal tactics, and Russia’s invasion and annexation of a neighbor-
ing country’s territory, the state of freedom in 2014 worsened signifi-
cantly in nearly every part of the world. For the ninth consecutive year,
Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s annual report on the condition
of global political rights and civil liberties, showed an overall decline.
Indeed, acceptance of democracy as the world’s dominant form of gov-
ernment—and of an international system built on democratic ideals—is
under greater threat than at any point in the last 25 years. Even after
such a long period of mounting pressure on democracy, developments
in 2014 were exceptionally grim. The report’s findings show that nearly
twice as many countries suffered setbacks as registered gains, 61 to 33,
with the number of gains hitting its lowest point since the nine-year ero-
sion began.
This pattern held true across geographical regions, with more de-
clines than gains in the Middle East and North Africa, Eurasia, sub-
Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and an even split in Asia-
Pacific. Syria, a dictatorship mired in civil war and ethnic division and
facing uncontrolled terrorism, received its worst Freedom in the World
country score in more than a decade.
The lack of democratic gains around the world was conspicuous. The
one notable exception was Tunisia, which became the first Arab country
to achieve the status of Free since Lebanon was gripped by civil war
forty years ago. By contrast, a troubling number of large, economically
powerful, or regionally influential countries moved backward: Russia,
Venezuela, Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Nigeria, Kenya, and Azerbaijan.
There were also net declines across five of the seven categories of dem-
Journal of Democracy Volume 26, Number 2 April 2015

© 2015 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press
on
Arch Puddington 123
ocratic indicators assessed by the report. Continuing a recent trend, the

worst reversals affected freedom of expression, civil society, and the
rule of law. In a new and disquieting development, a number of coun-
tries lost ground due to state surveillance, restrictions on Internet com-
munications, and curbs on personal autonomy.
Explicit Rejection of Democratic Standards

Just as disturbing as the statistical decline was the open disdain for
democratic standards that colored the words and actions of autocratic
governments during the year. Until recently, most authoritarian regimes
claimed to respect international agreements and paid lip service to the
norms of competitive elections and human rights. They now increas-
ingly flout democratic values, argue for the superiority of what amounts
to one-party rule, and seek to throw off the constraints of fundamental
diplomatic principles.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the outright seizure and
formal annexation of Crimea, is the prime example of this phenom-
enon. The Russian intervention was in direct violation of an interna-
tional agreement that had guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
President Vladimir Putin made his contempt for the values of liberal
democracy unmistakably clear. He and his aides equated raw propa-
ganda with legitimate journalism, and treated human-rights activists as
enemies of the state.
In Egypt, the rise of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been accompa-
nied by a relentless campaign to roll back the gains of the Arab Spring.
In an unprecedented trampling of the rule of law, Egyptian courts sen-
tenced 1,300 political detainees to death in a series of drumhead tri-
als that lacked the most basic elements of due process. Under Sisi, a
once-vibrant media sector has been bent into submission, human-rights
organizations suppressed to the point where they can no longer operate,
foreign scholars barred, and domestic critics (both secular and Islamist)
arrested or forced into exile.
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdo¢gan consolidated power dur-
ing the year and waged an increasingly aggressive campaign against
democratic pluralism. He openly demanded that media owners censor
coverage or fire critical journalists, told the Constitutional Court that he
does not respect its rulings, threatened reporters (and rebuked women
journalists), and ordered radical changes to the school curriculum. Hav-
ing risen from the premiership to the presidency in August, he formed a
“shadow cabinet” that allows him to run the country from the presiden-
tial palace, circumventing constitutional rules and the ministries of his
own party’s government.
In China, President Xi Jinping continued to centralize authority and
maintain hands-on involvement in policy areas ranging from domes-
Freedom in the World

Freedom in the World is an evaluation of political rights and civil
liberties in the world that Freedom House has provided on an annual
basis for more than forty years. (Established in New York in 1941,
Freedom House is a nonprofit organization that monitors political
rights and civil liberties around the world.) The survey assesses a
country’s freedom by examining its record in two areas: A country
grants its citizens Political Rights when it permits them to form
political parties that represent a significant range of voter choice and
whose leaders can openly compete for and be elected to positions of
power in government. A country upholds its citizens’ Civil Liberties
when it respects and protects their religious, ethnic, economic, lin-
guistic, and other rights, including gender and family rights, personal
freedoms, and freedoms of the press, belief, and association. The
survey rates each country on a seven-point scale for both political
rights and civil liberties (1 representing the most free and 7 the least
free) and then divides the world into three broad categories: Free
(countries whose ratings average 1.0 to 2.5); Partly Free (countries
whose ratings average 3.0 to 5.0); and Not Free (countries whose
ratings average 5.5 to 7.0). Freedom House also assigns upward or
downward “trend arrows” to countries which saw general positive
or negative trends during the year that were not significant enough
to result in a ratings change for Political Rights or Civil Liberties
from the previous year.
The ratings, which are the product of a process that includes a team
of in-house and consultant writers along with senior scholars, are not
merely assessments of the conduct of governments. Rather, they are
intended to reflect the real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed by
individuals as the result of actions by both state and nonstate actors.
Thus a country with a benign government facing violent forces (such
as terrorist movements or insurgencies) hostile to an open society will
be graded on the basis of the on-the-ground conditions that determine
whether the population is able to exercise its freedoms. The survey
enables scholars and policy makers both to assess the direction of
global change annually and to examine trends in freedom over time
and on a comparative basis across regions with different political and
economic systems. The electoral-democracy designation reflects a
judgment about the last major national election or elections.
For more information about Freedom House’s programs and
publications, please visit www.freedomhouse.org.
Note: The findings in this essay and the accompanying Table
reflect global events from 1 January 2014 through 31 December
2014.
Arch Puddington 125
tic security to Internet management to ethnic relations, emerging as the

most powerful Chinese Communist Party leader since Deng Xiaoping.
He continued to bolster China’s sweeping maritime territorial claims
with armed force and personnel, and while his aggressive anticorrup-
tion campaign reached the highest echelons of the party, culminating in
the arrest of former security czar Zhou Yongkang, it remained selective
and ignored the principles of due process. Moreover, the campaign has
been compromised by an intensified crackdown on grassroots anticor-
ruption activists and other elements of civil society, including a series
of politically motivated convictions. The government also intensified its
persecution of the Uighur community, vastly restricting Uighurs’ ability
to observe their Muslim faith and sentencing activists and journalists to
long prison terms.
The Effects and Causes of Terrorism

In a variety of ways, lack of democratic governance creates an en-
abling environment for terrorism, and the problem rapidly metastasized
as a threat to human life and human freedom during 2014. In a wide
swath of the globe stretching from West Africa through the Middle East
to South Asia, radical jihadist forces plagued local governments and
populations. Their impact on countries such as Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and
Nigeria was devastating, as they massacred security forces and civilians
alike, took foreigners hostage, and killed or enslaved religious minori-
ties, including Muslims whom they did not recognize as such. Women
were particular targets: Young women and teenage girls were seized as
war prizes; schoolgirls were kidnapped and raped; women educators and
health workers were assassinated; and women suffered disproportion-
ately in refugee camps. As horror followed horror, the year ended with
a slaughter of more than 130 schoolchildren by the Pakistani Taliban.
The spike in terrorist violence laid bare widespread corruption, poor
governance, and counterproductive security strategies in a number of
countries with weak or nonexistent democratic institutions. The Syrian
regime of President Bashar al-Assad had opened the door to the growth
of the Islamic State and other extremist movements by brutally repress-
ing first peaceful protesters and the political opposition, then the various
rebel groups that rose up to defend them. The Iraqi government of Nouri
al-Maliki also smoothed the militants’ path by persecuting opposition
leaders, rebuking peaceful Sunni protests, and fostering corruption and
cronyism in the security forces. More recently, the Sisi government in
Egypt has made the same mistake in its remorseless drive to eliminate
the Muslim Brotherhood, indirectly fueling an armed insurgency and
contributing to the formation of an Islamic State affiliate in the country.
In Nigeria, neither the government nor the military has proved capable
of dealing effectively with Boko Haram, which operates with impunity in
Table—Freedom in the World 2014:

Independent Countries
Freedom Freedom
Country PR CL Country PR CL
Rating Rating
Afghanistan  6 6 Not Free Egypt  6 5 Not Free
Albania* 3 3 Partly Free El Salvador* 2 3 Free
Algeria 6 5 Not Free Equatorial Guinea 7 7 Not Free
Andorra* 1 1 Free Eritrea 7 7 Not Free
Angola 6 5 Not Free Estonia* 1 1 Free
Antigua and Barbuda* 2 2 Free Ethiopia 6 6 Not Free
Argentina* 2 2 Free Fiji* 3 4 Partly Free
Armenia 5 4 Partly Free Finland* 1 1 Free
Australia* 1 1 Free France* 1 1 Free
Austria* 1 1 Free Gabon 6 5 Not Free
Azerbaijan  6 6 Not Free The Gambia  6 6 Not Free
Bahamas* 1 1 Free Georgia* 3 3 Partly Free
Bahrain 7 6 Not Free Germany* 1 1 Free
Bangladesh* 4 4 Partly Free Ghana* 1 2 Free
Barbados* 1 1 Free Greece* 2 2 Free
Belarus 7 6 Not Free Grenada* 1 2 Free
Belgium* 1 1 Free Guatemala* 3 4 Partly Free
Belize* 1 2 Free Guinea 5 5 Partly Free
Benin* 2 2 Free Guinea-Bissau 5 5 Partly Free 
Bhutan* 3 4 Partly Free Guyana* 2 3 Free
Bolivia* 3 3 Partly Free Haiti 5 5 Partly Free
Bosnia-Herzegovina* 4 3 Partly Free Honduras* 4 4 Partly Free
Botswana* 3 2 Free Hungary* 2 2 Free
Brazil* 2 2 Free Iceland* 1 1 Free
Brunei 6 5 Not Free India* 2 3 Free
Bulgaria* 2 2 Free Indonesia* 2 4 Partly Free
Burkina Faso 6 3 Partly Free Iran 6 6 Not Free
Burma 6 6 Not Free Iraq 6 6 Not Free
Burundi 6 5 Not Free  Ireland* 1 1 Free
Cambodia 6 5 Not Free Israel* 1 2 Free
Cameroon 6 6 Not Free Italy* 1 1 Free
Canada* 1 1 Free Jamaica* 2 3 Free
Cape Verde* 1 1 Free Japan* 1 1 Free
Central African Rep. 7 7 Not Free Jordan 6 5 Not Free
Chad 7 6 Not Free Kazakhstan 6 5 Not Free
Chile* 1 1 Free Kenya* 4 4 Partly Free
China 7 6 Not Free Kiribati* 1 1 Free
Colombia* 3 4 Partly Free Kosovo* 4 4 Partly Free
Comoros* 3 4 Partly Free Kuwait 5 5 Partly Free
Congo (Brazzaville) 6 5 Not Free Kyrgyzstan  5 5 Partly Free
Congo (Kinshasa) 6 6 Not Free Laos 7 6 Not Free
Costa Rica* 1 1 Free Latvia* 2 2 Free
Côte d’Ivoire 5 4 Partly Free Lebanon  5 4 Partly Free
Croatia* 1 2 Free Lesotho*  2 3 Free
Cuba 7 6 Not Free Liberia*  3 4 Partly Free
Cyprus* 1 1 Free Libya 6 6 Not Free 
Czech Republic* 1 1 Free Liechtenstein* 1 1 Free
Denmark* 1 1 Free Lithuania* 1 1 Free
Djibouti 6 5 Not Free Luxembourg* 1 1 Free
Dominica* 1 1 Free Macedonia* 4 3 Partly Free
Dominican Republic* 2 3 Free Madagascar* 4 4 Partly Free
Ecuador*  3 3 Partly Free Malawi* 3 4 Partly Free
Arch Puddington 127
Freedom Freedom
Country PR CL Country PR CL
Rating Rating
Malaysia  4 4 Partly Free Slovenia* 1 1 Free
Maldives* 4 4 Partly Free Solomon Islands* 3 3 Partly Free
Mali 5 4 Partly Free Somalia 7 7 Not Free
Malta* 1 1 Free South Africa* 2 2 Free
Marshall Islands 1 1 Free South Korea*  2 2 Free
Mauritania 6 5 Not Free South Sudan 7 6 Not Free
Mauritius* 1 2 Free Spain* 1 1 Free
Mexico*  3 3 Partly Free Sri Lanka 5 5 Partly Free
Micronesia* 1 1 Free Sudan 7 7 Not Free
Moldova* 3 3 Partly Free Suriname* 2 2 Free
Monaco* 2 1 Free Swaziland  7 5 Not Free
Mongolia* 1 2 Free Sweden* 1 1 Free
Montenegro* 3 2 Free Switzerland* 1 1 Free
Morocco 5 4 Partly Free Syria  7 7 Not Free
Mozambique 4 3 Partly Free Taiwan* 1 2 Free
Namibia* 2 2 Free Tajikistan  6 6 Not Free
Nauru* 1 2 Free Tanzania* 3 3 Partly Free
Nepal* 4 4 Partly Free Thailand 6 5 Not Free 
Netherlands* 1 1 Free Timor-Leste 3 3 Partly Free
New Zealand* 1 1 Free Togo 4 4 Partly Free
Nicaragua 4 3 Partly Free Tonga* 2 2 Free
Niger* 3 4 Partly Free Trinidad & Tobago* 2 2 Free
Nigeria 4 5 Partly Free Tunisia* 1 3 Free 
North Korea 7 7 Not Free Turkey*  3 4 Partly Free
Norway* 1 1 Free Turkmenistan 7 7 Not Free
Oman 6 5 Not Free Tuvalu* 1 1 Free
Pakistan* 4 5 Partly Free Uganda 6 5 Not Free 
Palau* 1 1 Free Ukraine* 3 3 Partly Free
Panama* 2 2 Partly Free U.A.E. 6 6 Not Free
Papua New Guinea* 4 3 Partly Free United Kingdom* 1 1 Free
Paraguay* 3 3 Partly Free United States* 1 1 Free
Peru* 2 3 Free Uruguay* 1 1 Free
Philippines* 3 3 Partly Free Uzbekistan 7 7 Not Free
Poland* 1 1 Free Vanuatu* 2 2 Free
Portugal* 1 1 Free Venezuela  5 5 Partly Free
Qatar 6 5 Not Free Vietnam 7 5 Not Free
Romania* 2 2 Free Yemen  6 6 Not Free
Russia 6 6 Not Free Zambia* 3 4 Partly Free
Rwanda 6 6 Not Free Zimbabwe 5 6 Not Free
Saint Kitts & Nevis* 1 1 Free PR and CL stand for Political Rights and
Saint Lucia* 1 1 Free Civil Liberties, respectively; 1 represents
Saint Vincent* 1 1 Free the most-free and 7 the least-free rating.
Samoa* 2 2 Free   indicate a change in Political-Rights or
San Marino* 1 1 Free Civil-Liberties ratings since the last survey.
S~ao Tomé & Príncipe* 2 2 Free   (trend arrows) denote a positive or neg-
Saudi Arabia 7 7 Not Free ative movement without a change in rating.
Senegal* 2 2 Free * indicates countries that are electoral de-
Serbia* 2 2 Free mocracies.
Seychelles* 3 3 Partly Free The Freedom Rating is an overall judgment
based on survey results. See the box on p. 123
Sierra Leone* 3 3 Partly Free
for more details on the survey. The ratings in
Singapore 4 4 Partly Free this table reflect global events from 1 January
Slovakia* 1 1 Free 2014 through 31 December 2014.
parts of the country’s north. While the military has for decades played a
large role in Nigerian political life, it has proved poorly equipped, badly
trained, hollowed out by graft, and prone to scattershot tactics that fail
to distinguish between terrorists and civilians. In Pakistan, the military
and intelligence services have a long history of colluding with certain
extremist groups, including some that are responsible for mass killings
of civilians. When they do move against militant bastions, they too often
resort to indiscriminate violence and fail to follow up with improved
governance.
Many governments have exploited the escalation of terrorism as a jus-
tification for new and essentially unrelated repressive measures. While
a vigorous debate over how democracies should respond to terrorism at
home and abroad is under way in Europe, Australia, and North America,
leaders elsewhere are citing the threat as they silence dissidents, shutter
critical media, and eliminate civil society groups. Thus the regime of
Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has imprisoned opposition politi-
cal figures as terrorists; Kenyan authorities have deregistered hundreds
of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and unleashed security agen-
cies while pursuing links to Somali militants; and China has invoked
terrorism to support harsh prison sentences against nonviolent Uighur
activists and Internet users, including a life sentence for well-known
Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.
A Return to Cruder Authoritarian Methods

The exploitation of the terrorism threat is just one aspect of a gen-
eral trend in which repressive regimes are returning to blunt, retrograde
tactics in their ongoing effort to preserve political control. In recent
decades, autocrats had favored more “modern,” nuanced methods that
aimed to protect de facto monopolies on power while maintaining a
veneer of democratic pluralism and avoiding practices associated with
twentieth-century totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships.
Over the past year, however, there were signs that authoritarian re-
gimes were beginning to abandon the quasi-democratic camouflage that
allowed them to survive and prosper in the post–Cold War world. Again,
the most blatant example is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, whose official
justifications included ethnic-nationalist, irredentist claims and which
quickly drew comparisons to the land grabs of Hitler or Stalin. The move
exposed Moscow as a committed enemy of European peace and democ-
ratization rather than a would-be strategic partner. China’s government
responded to public discontent with campaigns reminiscent of the Mao
era, including televised confessions that have gained prominence under
Xi Jinping. The Chinese authorities are also resorting to criminal and
administrative detention to restrict activists instead of softer tactics such
as house arrest or informal interrogations. Both China and Russia have
Arch Puddington 129
made use of one of the Cold War’s most chilling instruments, the place-
ment of dissidents in psychiatric hospitals.
In Venezuela and Azerbaijan, the ranks of political prisoners steadily
increased in 2014, as leading officials railed against foreign conspira-
cies aimed at fomenting revolution. Meanwhile, rulers in Egypt, Bah-
rain, and other Middle Eastern countries, who just a decade ago felt
obliged to move toward competitive elections, now resort to violent po-
lice tactics, sham trials, and severe sentences as they seek to annihilate
political opposition. And whereas the most successful authoritarian re-
gimes previously tolerated a modest opposition press, some civil society
activity, and a comparatively vibrant Internet environment, they are now
reducing or closing these remaining spaces for dissent and debate.
The return to older authoritarian practices has included increased
military involvement in governance and political affairs. In Thailand,
the military leaders responsible for the removal of Prime Minister Yin-
gluck Shinawatra and her elected government made clear that a return to
democratic rule will not take place in the foreseeable future. The mili-
tary commandeered the political transition after the ouster of Burkina
Faso’s president, and armed forces continued to play a major role in a
number of other African states, including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda,
and Zimbabwe. In Egypt, the Sisi government has cemented the mili-
tary’s position as the leading force in society. A similar phenomenon
has emerged in Venezuela, where the armed forces are involved in the
economy, social programs, and internal security, and are thought to play
a critical part in drug trafficking and other criminal ventures. Other no-
table developments in 2014 included:
• Humanitarian crises rooted in undemocratic governance: In Af-

rica, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, millions of refugees were
forced into squalid camps, risked their lives in overcrowded boats, or
found tenuous shelter on the margins of foreign societies. Authori-
tarian misrule was a primary cause of these humanitarian crises. In
Syria, the civil war was originally sparked by the regime’s attacks on
demonstrators who were protesting the torture of students accused of
antigovernment graffiti. In South Sudan, a political dispute between
the president and his former vice-president—in the context of an in-
terim constitution that gives sweeping powers to the executive—led
to fighting within the army that developed into full-scale civil war.
The combatants have targeted civilians, who are also facing acute
food shortages and massive internal displacement. While the conflict
in Ukraine has not reached the same level, Russia’s invasion has cre-
ated a crisis like none seen in Europe since the Balkan wars of the
1990s. The aggression was precipitated in part by a confrontation
between the Ukrainian people and their increasingly authoritarian
president, following decades of corrupt Ukrainian administrations.
• Tunisia’s exceptional success story: In 2014, Tunisia took its

place among the Free countries of the world. This is remarkable
not just because it was ranked Not Free only five years ago, with
scores that placed it among some of the most repressive regimes in
the world, but also because Tunisia is so far the only successful case
among the many Arab countries that exhibited some political opening
in the 2011 Arab Spring. The improvements that pushed it into the
Free category included a progressive constitution adopted in January
2014 and well-regarded parliamentary and presidential elections later
in the year. As the only full-fledged Arab democracy, Tunisia can set
a strong positive example for the region and for all countries that still
struggle under authoritarian rule.
• The decline of Internet freedom: Restrictions on Internet free-

dom have long been less severe than those imposed on traditional
media, but the gap is closing as governments crack down on online
activity. Censorship and surveillance, repressive new laws, criminal
penalties, and arrests of users have been on the rise in numerous set-
tings. For example, officials in Ecuador increased online monitoring
in 2014, hiring firms to remove content deemed unfavorable to the
government from sites such as YouTube and invoking the 2013 com-
munications law to prosecute social-media users who were critical
of the president. The Rwandan government stepped up use of a new
law that allows security officials to monitor online communications,
and surveillance appears to have increased in practice. Such restric-
tions affect Free countries as well. After the Sewol ferry accident in
South Korea in April and related criticism and rumors surrounding
the president, the government began routine monitoring and censor-
ship of online discussions. Israel also featured a stricter environment
for discussion on social media this year, especially regarding contro-
versial views on the situation in the Gaza Strip.
• Overlooked autocrats: While some of the world’s worst dictator-

ships regularly made headlines, others continued to fly below the ra-
dar. Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev won a landslide reelection
victory against an opposition that was crippled by arrests and legal
constraints, and the regime stepped up its jailing of human-rights
activists, journalists, and other perceived enemies. Despite years of
backsliding in political rights and civil liberties, however, Azerbai-
jan has avoided the democratic world’s opprobrium due to its energy
wealth and cooperation on security matters. Vietnam is also an at-
tractive destination for foreign investment, and the United States and
its allies gave the country special attention in 2014 as the underdog
facing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. But like China,
Vietnam remains an entrenched one-party state, and the regime im-
Arch Puddington 131
posed harsher penalties for free speech online, arrested protesters,

and continued to ban work by human-rights organizations. Ethiopia
is held up as a model for development in Africa, and is one of the
world’s largest recipients of foreign assistance. But in 2014, its se-
curity forces opened fire on protesters, carried out large-scale arrests
of bloggers and other journalists as well as members of the political
opposition, and evicted communities from their land to make way
for opaque development projects. Finally, while several countries in
the Middle East—most notably oil-rich Saudi Arabia—receive spe-
cial treatment from the United States and others, the United Arab
Emirates stands out for how little international attention is paid to its
systematic denial of rights for foreign workers, who make up the vast
majority of the population; its enforcement of one of the most restric-
tive press laws in the Arab world; and its dynastic political system,
which leaves no space for opposition.
Global Findings and Regional Trends

The number of countries designated by Freedom in the World as Free
in 2014 stood at 89, representing 46 percent of the world’s 195 polities
and nearly 2.9 billion people—or 40 percent of the global population.
The number of Free countries increased by one from the previous year’s
report. The number of countries qualifying as Partly Free stood at 55, or
28 percent of all countries assessed, and they were home to just over 1.7
billion people, or 24 percent of the world’s total. The number of Partly
Free countries decreased by four from the previous year. A total of 51
countries were deemed Not Free, representing 26 percent of the world’s
polities. The number of people living under Not Free conditions stood
at 2.6 billion people, or 36 percent of the global population, though it
is important to note that more than half of this number lives in just one
country: China. The number of Not Free countries increased by three
from 2013.
The number of electoral democracies stood at 125, three more than in
2013. Five countries achieved electoral-democracy status: Fiji, Kosovo,
Madagascar, the Maldives, and the Solomon Islands. Two countries, Libya
and Thailand, lost their designation as electoral democracies. Tunisia rose
from Partly Free to Free, while Guinea-Bissau improved from Not Free
to Partly Free. Four countries fell from Partly Free to Not Free: Burundi,
Libya, Thailand, and Uganda.
Middle East and North Africa. Although Tunisia became the Arab
world’s only Free country after holding democratic elections under
a new constitution, the rest of the Middle East and North Africa was
racked by negative and often tragic events. The Syrian civil war ground
on, the Islamic State and other extremist militant factions dramatically
extended their reach, and Libya’s tentative improvements following the

downfall of Muammar Qadhafi rapidly disintegrated as the country fell
into a new internal conflict. Rival armed groups also overran a fragile
political process in Yemen, and the effects of the Syrian war paralyzed
elected institutions in Lebanon. Egypt continued its rollback of post-
Mubarak reforms and solidified its return to autocracy with sham elec-
tions and a crackdown on all forms of dissent.
Tunisia’s political-rights rating improved from 3 to 1, and its status
improved from Partly Free to Free due to the adoption of a progressive
constitution, governance improvements under a consensus-based care-
taker administration, and the holding of free and fair parliamentary and
presidential elections, all with a high degree of transparency.
Bahrain’s political-rights rating declined from 6 to 7 due to grave
flaws in the 2014 legislative elections and the government’s unwilling-
ness to address longstanding grievances among the majority Shia com-
munity about the drawing of electoral districts and the possibility of
fair representation. Iraq’s political-rights rating declined from 5 to 6
due to the Islamic State’s attempts to destroy Christian, Shia, Yazidi,
and other communities under its control, as well as attacks on Sunnis
by state-sponsored Shia militias. Libya’s political-rights rating declined
from 4 to 6, its civil-liberties rating declined from 5 to 6, and its status
declined from Partly Free to Not Free due to the country’s descent into
a civil war, which contributed to a humanitarian crisis as citizens fled
embattled cities, and led to pressure on civil society and media outlets
amid the increased political polarization.
Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria all received a downward trend arrows. In
Egypt, this was due to the complete marginalization of the opposition,
state surveillance of electronic communications, public exhortations to
report critics of the government to the authorities, and the mass trials
and unjustified imprisonment of members of the Muslim Brotherhood; in
Lebanon, to the parliament’s repeated failure to elect a president and its
postponement of overdue legislative elections for another two and a half
years, leaving the country with a presidential void and a National Assem-
bly whose mandate expired in 2013; and in Syria, to worsening religious
persecution, the weakening of civil society groups and the rule of law, and
the large-scale starvation and torture of civilians and detainees.
Eurasia. Events in Eurasia in 2014 were dominated by the upheaval

in Ukraine. Gains related to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych
through the EuroMaidan protests in February, which led to the election
of a new president and parliament later in the year, were offset by Rus-
sia’s seizure of Crimea in March and ongoing battles with pro-Russian
separatists in eastern Ukraine. The Russian government coupled its re-
jection of international pressure over Ukraine with intensified domestic
controls on dissent, tightening its grip on the media sector and NGOs.
Arch Puddington 133
The government of Azerbaijan renewed its assault on dissent in 2014,

targeting traditional media and civil society organizations for legal ha-
rassment, arbitrary detention, and physical abuse. Ratings for the region
as a whole are the second worst in the world after the Middle East.
Ukraine’s political-rights rating rose from 4 to 3 due to improve-
ments in political pluralism, parliamentary elections, and government
transparency following the departure of President Viktor Yanukovych.
Russia’s civil-liberties rating declined from 5 to 6 due to expanded
media controls, a dramatically increased level of propaganda on state-
controlled television, and new restrictions on the ability of some citizens
to travel abroad.
Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan all received downward trend
arrows. Azerbaijan’s was due to an intensified crackdown on dissent,
including the imprisonment and abuse of human-rights advocates and
journalists. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, it was due to a government crack-
down on freedom of assembly and the ability of NGOs to operate. And
in the case of Tajikistan, it resulted from the constant abuse of opposi-
tion parties at the local level in the run-up to parliamentary elections, the
designation of the political-reform and opposition movement Group 24
as an extremist entity in October, and the arrest and temporary detention
of academic researcher Alexander Sodiqov on treason charges.

Asia-Pacific. Citizens of three major Asian states—India, Japan, and
Indonesia—went to the polls in 2014, handing their leaders strong man-
dates in what were largely open and fair electoral processes. These posi-
tive achievements contrasted sharply with the coup d’état in Thailand, in
which the military ousted an elected government, suspended the consti-
tution, and implemented martial-law restrictions that drastically rolled
back political rights and civil liberties. Burma, which has only partly
abandoned military rule, began to veer from the path to democracy:
Journalists and demonstrators faced greater restrictions; the Rohingya
minority continued to suffer from violence and official discrimination;
and proposed laws that would ban religious conversions and interfaith
marriages threatened to legitimize anti-Muslim extremism.
Fiji’s political-rights rating improved from 6 to 3 as a result of
September general elections—the first since a 2006 coup—that were
deemed free and fair. Nepal’s political-rights rating improved from 4 to
3 due to the functioning of a stable government for the first time in more
than five years following 2013 elections, and significant progress by
the main political parties toward the completion of a draft constitution.
Bangladesh’s political-rights rating declined from 3 to 4 due to na-
tional elections that were marred by an opposition boycott, as well as
widespread violence and intimidation by a range of political parties.
Burma’s civil-liberties rating worsened from 5 to 6 due to restrictions
on media freedom, including the arrest and imprisonment of a number
of journalists. Sri Lanka’s civil-liberties rating declined from 4 to 5 due

to increased pressure on freedom of expression and association, includ-
ing curbs on traditional media and Internet-based news and opinion, and
surveillance and harassment of civil society activists. Thailand’s polit-
ical-rights rating declined from 4 to 6, its civil-liberties rating declined
from 4 to 5, and its status declined from Partly Free to Not Free due to
the May military coup, whose leaders abolished the 2007 constitution
and imposed severe restrictions on speech and assembly.
Afghanistan received a downward trend arrow due to increased vio-
lence against journalists and civilians amid the withdrawal of interna-
tional combat troops. Malaysia received a downward trend arrow due
to the government’s use of the Sedition Act to intimidate political op-
ponents, an increase in arrests and harassment of Shia Muslims and
transgender Malaysians, and more extensive use of defamation laws to
silence independent or critical voices.
Europe. In Hungary, parliamentary and local elections revealed the

extent to which recent legislative and other changes have tilted the play-
ing field in favor of the ruling Fidesz party. Observers noted slanted me-
dia coverage, the misuse of state resources, gerrymandering, and cam-
paign-spending problems. Turkey drifted much further from democratic
norms, with Erdo¢gan rising to the presidency and overseeing govern-
ment attempts to quash corruption cases against his allies and associates.
The media and judiciary both faced greater interference by the executive
and legislative branches, including a series of raids and arrests targeting
media outlets affiliated with Erdo¢gan’s political enemies.
Kosovo’s political-rights rating improved from 5 to 4 due to the com-
paratively successful conduct of June elections and a subsequent agree-
ment by rival parties to form a coalition government.
Hungary’s political-rights rating worsened from 1 to 2 due to an elec-
tion campaign that demonstrated the diminished space for fair competi-
tion given legislative and other advantages accrued by the ruling party.
Macedonia’s political-rights rating worsened from 3 to 4 due to serious
shortcomings in the April general elections and a related legislative boy-
cott by the opposition.
Turkey received a downward trend arrow due to increased political
interference in anticorruption mechanisms and judicial processes, and
greater tensions between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Alevis.
Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa again experienced extreme

volatility in 2014. News from the continent was dominated by the Ebola
outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and a sharp rise in vio-
lence by Islamist militants from Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab
in Kenya. Several other countries, particularly in East Africa, suffered
democratic setbacks during the year, as repressive governments further
Arch Puddington 135
limited the space for critical views. In Uganda, a series of recent laws
targeting the opposition, civil society, the LGBT community, and wom-
en led to serious rights abuses and increased suppression of dissent.
Burundi’s government cracked down further on the already restricted
opposition in advance of 2015 elections, and critics of the authorities in
Rwanda faced increased surveillance and harassment online.
Guinea-Bissau’s political-rights rating improved from 6 to 5, and its
status improved from Not Free to Partly Free, because the 2014 elec-
tions—the first since a 2012 coup—were deemed free and fair by inter-
national and national observers, and the opposition was able to compete
and increase its participation in government. Madagascar’s political-
rights rating improved from 5 to 4 due to a peaceful transition after
recovery from an earlier coup and the seating of a new parliament that
included significant opposition representation.
Burkina Faso’s political-rights rating worsened from 5 to 6 as a re-
sult of the dissolution of the government and parliament by the military,
which took charge of the country after President Blaise Compaoré was
forced to resign amid popular protests over his attempt to run for reelec-
tion in 2015. Burundi’s political-rights rating deteriorated from 5 to 6,
and its status declined from Partly Free to Not Free, due to a coordinated
government crackdown on opposition-party members and critics, with
dozens of arrests and harsh sentences imposed on political activists and
human-rights defenders. Nigeria’s civil-liberties rating went from 4 to
5 due a sharp deterioration in conditions for residents of areas affected
by the Boko Haram insurgency, including mass displacement and a dra-
matic increase in violence perpetrated by both the militants and security
forces. Rwanda’s civil-liberties rating worsened from 5 to 6 due to the
narrowing space for expression and discussion of views that are criti-
cal of the government, particularly online, amid increased suspicions
of government surveillance of private communications. South Sudan’s
political-rights rating declined from 6 to 7 due to the intensification of
the civil war, which derailed the electoral timetable and featured serious
human-rights abuses by the combatants, including deliberate attacks on
rival ethnic groups for political reasons. Uganda’s civil-liberties rating
worsened from 4 to 5, and its status declined from Partly Free to Not
Free, due to increased violations of individual rights and the freedoms of
expression, assembly, and association, particularly for opposition sup-
porters, civil society groups, women, and the LGBT community. Liberia
received a downward trend arrow due to the government’s imposition
of ill-advised quarantines that restricted freedom of movement and em-
ployment in some of the country’s most destitute areas, as well as sev-
eral new or revived restrictions on freedoms of the press and assembly.
Americas. In Mexico, public outrage at the authorities’ failure to stem

criminal violence and corruption reached a boiling point after the disap-
pearance of 43 politically active students in Guerrero State. Protests ini-

tially led by the families of the students, who were killed by a criminal
gang linked to local officials, grew into mass demonstrations across the
country that challenged the administration of President Enrique Pe~na
Nieto. Organized crime and gang violence also continued to rise in Hon-
duras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, leading thousands of citizens to flee
to the United States during the year. The governments of Venezuela and
Ecuador, meanwhile, continued their pattern of cracking down on the
political opposition and other critical voices. A major development in
the region was the announcement that the United States and Cuba had
agreed to the normalization of relations after a rupture of more than fifty
years. Although Cuba is the Americas’ worst-rated country in Freedom
in the World, it has shown modest progress over the past several years,
with Cubans gaining more rights to establish private businesses and
travel abroad. Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela all received downward
trend arrows. In the case of Ecuador, it was due to increased limits on
freedom of expression, including the monitoring of online content and
harassment of bloggers and social-media users. In the case of Mexico,
it was because of the forced disappearance of 43 students who were
engaging in political activities that reportedly angered local authorities
in the town of Iguala, Guerrero—an atrocity that highlighted the extent
of corruption among local authorities and the environment of impunity
in the country. And in Venezuela’s case, it was due to the government’s
repressive response to antigovernment demonstrations, including vio-
lence by security forces, the politicized arrests of opposition supporters,
and the legal system’s failure to protect basic due process rights for all
detained Venezuelans.
Still the System of Choice

For some time now, the momentum of world politics has favored
democracy’s adversaries. While the dramatic gains of the late twentieth
century have not been erased, the institutions meant to ensure fair elec-
tions, a combative press, checks on state power, and probity in govern-
ment and commerce are showing wear and tear in the new or revived
democracies of Central Europe, Latin America, and Asia. In the Middle
East, the potential of the Arab Spring has given way to the chaos and
carnage that prevail in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, and to a ruthless
dictatorship in Egypt. In Africa, the promise of freedom survives, but
the dominant trend is one of corruption, internal conflict, terrorism, and
ugly campaigns against the LGBT community.
Some might say there are few compelling advertisements today for
the benefits of democratic government, and few signs that the retreat of
open political systems can be reversed. Yet several major events during
2014 suggest that this gloomy assessment is off the mark. In Ukraine,
Arch Puddington 137
hundreds of thousands of people rose up to defy a kleptocratic leader-

ship that offered the country a political and economic dead end. Given
the choice between a future course patterned on Russian authoritarian-
ism and a path toward Europe and its
democratic standards, the majority did
Democracies face many not hesitate in choosing the option of
problems of their own, freedom, even with its uncertainties.
but their biggest mistake In Hong Kong, the student-led Um-
would be to accept the brella Movement emerged after the
Communist leadership in Beijing an-
proposition that they
nounced that, contrary to previous
are impotent in the face
commitments and public expectations,
of strongmen for whom elections for the chief executive would
bullying and lies are the require candidates to be nominated by
fundamental currencies a pro-Beijing committee, making uni-
of political exchange. versal suffrage a hollow exercise. The
controversy epitomized both Beijing’s
refusal to countenance the basic tenets
of democracy and the ultimate weakness of its legitimacy among the
public. It also stood as a powerful reminder that while China’s model of
state-driven growth combined with strict political control is attractive to
elites in authoritarian settings (and to some in democracies as well), ordi-
nary people, and especially the young, find China’s rejection of freedom
profoundly unappealing. Notably, the people of Taiwan, through student
protests and local-election results during the year, strongly voiced their
preference for a future in which popular sovereignty prevails.
Along with the emergence of popular movements for democratic
change, the past year brought clear evidence of crisis in major undemo-
cratic states. In Venezuela, a toxic mixture of corruption, misrule, and
oil-price declines brought shortages, rampant inflation, and enhanced
repression. Once touted as a possible template for left-populist govern-
ments across Latin America, the system set in place by the late Hugo
Chávez now stands as a textbook case of political and economic dys-
function.
Plummeting oil prices also revealed the weaknesses of Vladimir Pu-
tin’s dictatorship. But Russia’s problems run deeper than a vulnerability
to the energy market. Corruption, cronyism, and the absence of the rule
of law have discouraged investment and economic diversification. Per-
vasive propaganda has virtually eliminated critical voices from policy
debates. And the absence of checks on presidential power has led to
disastrous foreign adventures and diplomatic blunders.
These and other examples from the year should remind the world how
much democracy matters. Antidemocratic practices lead to civil war and
humanitarian crisis. They facilitate the growth of terrorist movements,
whose effects inevitably spread beyond national borders. Corruption
and poor governance fuel economic instability, which can also have re-
gional or even global consequences.
Will the world’s established democracies come to recognize that the
global assault on free institutions poses a threat to their own national
interests? The sanctions placed on Russia by the United States, Europe,
and others are a welcome development. They send a message that invad-
ing one’s neighbor will have repercussions. The same might be said for
the coalition against the Islamic State.
But such firm messages have been lacking when despotic regimes
intimidate, jail, or kill their own people. President Sisi is treated as a
strong ruler and a partner in the fight against terrorism despite his en-
forcement of a level of repression not seen in Egypt in decades. The
leaders of democracies compete for China’s favor even as Beijing steps
up internal controls and pushes its expansive territorial claims. In Latin
America, Brazil and other democracies respond to Venezuela’s dete-
rioration with silence. In Asia, major democracies such as India and
Indonesia have declined to use their influence to encourage a return to
civilian rule in Thailand.
In short, democracies often seem determined to wait for authoritarian
misrule to blossom into international catastrophe before taking remedial
action. This is unfortunate, as even the most powerful repressive re-
gimes have shown that they are susceptible to pressures from their own
people and from the outside as well. And ordinary citizens have exhib-
ited a willingness to challenge even rulers with established histories of
bloodletting in the service of political control. Democracies face many
problems of their own, but their biggest mistake would be to accept the
proposition that they are impotent in the face of strongmen for whom
bullying and lies are the fundamental currencies of political exchange.
This is clearly not the case, even in today’s difficult times.

Zakaira Fareed - The Rise of Illiberal Democracy

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The Rise of Illiberal Democracy

Author(s): Fareed Zakaria

This content downloaded from 149.171.67.164 on Wed, 5 Jun 2013 00:37:56 AM

THE NEXT WAVE

routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving

Fareed Zakaria isManaging Editor of Foreign Affairs and a Con

tributing Editor for Newsweek.

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from democracy. As the political scientist Philippe Schmitter has

unambiguously linked to its practice." Today the two strands of

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [23]

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ones. In other words, half of the "democratizing" countries in the

percent of democratizing countries could have been so categorized;

DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY

From the time democracy has meant, first and fore

selecting governments, articulated by scholars ranging from Alexis de

[24] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume76No.6

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This definition also accords with the

country holds competitive, multiparty

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [25]

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THE ROAD TO LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

Since 1945Western governments have, for the most part, embodied

[26] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 76No. 6

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Indonesia, and Malaysia are of autocracies, while

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [27]

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per capita gnp. Today sEast Asian governments are amix of

[28] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 76No. 6

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having gone through the same phase of liberalization without

6MyronWeiner, "Empirical Democratic Theory," inMyron Weiner and Ergun

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [2 9 ]

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John Stuart Mill opened his classic On Liberty by noting that

sovereignty (that is, power) can result in the centralization of author

FOREIGN AFFAIRS -Volume 6No. 6

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [ 31 ]

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independent universities and media. Latin America actually combines

FOREIGN AFFAIRS -Volume 76No. 6

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pluralism in the present.

7Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.,New Viewpoints inAmerican History, New York: Macmil

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liberal democratic, as in Poland, and the Czech Republic?

provincial governors. From the war in Chechnya to his economic

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ETHNIC CONFLICT AND WAR

On December 8,1996, Jack Lang madea dramatic dash to

together by force. But the rapid secessions, without guarantees, insti

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [35]

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through elections. Surveying the breakdown of African and Asian

[36] FOREIGN AFFAIRS 76No. 6

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Kant distrusted unfettered, democratic and his argu

FOREIGN AFFAIRS- November/December 1997 [37]

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The distinction between liberaland illiberaldemocracies sheds light