Notater til Facing Up to the Democratic Recession av Larry Diamond PDF

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Democracy and Democratization

Notes to Facing Up to the Democratic Recession by Larry Diamond (2015) 1974:

- The “third wave” of global democratization (by Samuel P. Huntington) was inaugurated by Portugal’s Revolution of the Carnations. - 30% of the world’s independent states met the criteria of electoral democracy (the people can, through universal suffrage, choose and replace their leaders in regular, free, fair, and meaningful elections). - 46 democracies. Mostly Western, liberal democracies. Also, islands that were former British colonies, and others. - Freedom: 4,38 (1=most free, 7=most repressive)

2005:

Freedom: 3,22

2006:

No more net expansion in the number of electoral democracies. Electoral and liberal democracies declined, and then flattened out. The average level of freedom also deteriorated slightly.

2007:

Democracy has grown continuously, though some new are illiberal (competitive authoritarian regimes?). Simultaneously, the expansion in levels of freedom.

Why a recession? 1. A constituting period of equilibrium: Freedom and democracy have not continued gaining, but neither have they experienced net declines. Durability. Levitsky and Way argue that democracy never actually expanded as widely as Freedom House perceived in the first place (democracy was confused by competitive authoritarian regimes) 2. The last decade as an incipient decline in democracy. Has to examine the instability and stagnation of democracies, the incremental decline of democracy in the “grey zone” countries, the authoritarianism in the nondemocracies, decline in the functioning and self-confidence of the world’s established, rich democracies.

 The boom in comparative democratic studies has been accompanied by significant disagreement over how to define and measure democracy.

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Democracy and Democratization 

Classify regimes categorically to determine which regimes are democracies and which are not.

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Democracy = A continuous variable. Its key components vary on continuum. How do you weight imperfections, where do you draw the line for what a democracy is?

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Approaches to classifying regimes  Rely on continuous measurement of key variables (such as political rights, maybe combined with civil liberties)

The Democratic Recession: Breakdown and Erosions 

Mild, but protracted, democratic recession since about 2006. 1. Accelerating rate of democratic breakdown 

25 breakdowns of democracy since 2000, through coups and degradations of democratic rights and procedures.

2. The quality or stability of democracy has been declining in a number of large and strategically important emerging-market countries (“swing states”). 3. Authoritarianism has been deepening, including in big and important countries. 4. The established democracies seem to increasingly perform poorly and to lack the will and self-confidence to promote democracy effectively abroad. Example: The US.

Methodological challenge: Hard to determine a precise date or year for democratic failure. Example: Russia with Putin, Botswana with Khama and his Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), and Turkey with Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).  Were they ever democratic? Fact: There is a class of regimes that in the last decade or so have experienced 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. Best examples since 1999: Russia and Venezuela (lead to erosion in Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador as well).  The majority of the breakdowns since 2000, 13/25, resulted from the abuse of power and the desecration of democratic institutions and practiced by democratically elected rulers.

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The Decline of Freedom and the Rule of Law 

Freedom House: More countries experienced decline in freedom from 20062018, than experienced improvement. Two important elements, especially for Africa: 1. The declines have tended to crystallize over time. 2. The pace of decay in democratic institutions is not always evident to outside observers.

Why have freedom and democracy been regressing in many countries? 

Bad governance  Bad scores on the rule of law and transparency in the whole world, compared to political rights and civil liberties. Worse in Latin America, postcommunist Europe and Asia, than in Africa.  Africa: The biggest problem is controlling corruption and abuse of power.  Neo-patrimonial tendencies  Weak economic performance and rising inequality exacerbate the problems of abuse of power, rigging of elections, and violation of the democratic rules of the game.

The Strategic Swing States 

Focus on the weightiest emerging-market countries  The ones with large populations or large economies.  27 countries o

12/27 had worse average freedom scores at the end of 2013 than at the end of 2005, and also Russia, Egypt and Bangladesh.

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Two countries are freer today: Singapore and Pakistan. Not that much of a different. Other countries have remained stable.

 The most important countries outside the stable democratic West have been either stagnating or slipping backward.

The Authoritarian Resurgence 

Authoritarianism  Deepening

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China, Russia, postcommunist autocracies of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization o

China + Russia: Soft power (media), pushing back against democratic norms, flexing muscles. Promoting their own models and forms.

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African autocrats have increasingly used China’s aid and investment (and the ne regional war on Islamist terrorism) as a counterweight to Western pressure for democracy and good governance. China as role model.

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The Arab Spring has imploded in almost every country it touched, save Tunisia, leaving in most cases even more repressive states.

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Laws to criminalize international flows of financial and technical assistance from democracies to democratic parties, movements, media, civil society organizations etc. Restrictions on the ability of NGOs to form and operate.

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Authoritarian, and some democratic, states are becoming more resourceful, sophisticated, and unapologetic in suppressing Internet freedom.

Western Democracy in Retreat 

Decline in democratic efficacy, energy, and self-confidence in the West (including the US). The U.S.’ democracy’s vitality and self-confidence were very important during the third wave.

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A growing sense that democracy in the U.S. has not been functioning effectively enough to address the major challenges of governance. Polarization and deadlock. Historic low in public approval of Congress and public trust in government. Spreading democracy no longer seems to be an actual priority of U.S. foreign policy.

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Autocrats in weak states can pretty much do whatever they want to censor the media, crush the opposition, and perpetuate their rule -and Europe and the US will swallow it.

A Brighter Horizon? 

We haven’t seen a third reverse wave.

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Average levels of freedom have ebbed a little bit, but not calamitously. No significant erosion in public support for democracy. Big chasm between popular demand for democracy and the supply of it provided by the regime in African countries.

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There is hardly a dictatorship in the world that looks stable for the long run.

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Economic development, globalization, and the information revolution are undermining all forms of authority and empowering individuals.

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More desire for accountability, freedom, and political choice.

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Democracy and Democratization

 Democracy is receding somewhat in practice, but is still globally ascendant in peoples’ values and aspirations.

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