(PRI) Glance at headlines, and it’s easy to get gloomy about the state of democracy around the world. In China and Russia, the Middle East, Turkey and Thailand, South Korea and South Africa and beyond, authoritarian states seem to be more authoritarian, and some democracies are getting wobbly.
“We’re not just talking about a recession of democracies, in terms of countries that are democracies. We’re talking about a recession of democratic-ness, of the extent, the vigor, of freedom and democracy in the world,” said Larry Diamond at a National Endowment for Democracy event last year. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
But a robust case could also be made for democratic resilience. As some democracies have become wobbly, others have strengthened, or even moved to the democratic camp. The number of democratic states in the world has held steady for a decade at 89, by some counts, even as some have left the list and others have joined. (Here's Freedom House's count. The Economist Intelligence Unit's annual Democracy Index breaks the numbers down slightly differently.) […]
Read More © PRI
