International Day of Democracy: Challenging Times
By: Felix Wiebrecht
Sep 15, 2022
The United Nation’s International Day of Democracy comes at a time when freedoms are under intense pressure worldwide. Autocrats use the COVID-19 pandemic to restrict civil society; military coups have made a come-back; Tunisia’s democratic progress was recently eradicated by President Saied’s self-coup; autocratizers such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia was re-elected in biased elections; and Russia invaded Ukraine, while China simultaneously amplifies threats toward Taiwan.
V-Dem’s Democracy Report 2022 shows that the total share of people living in autocratic states is now 70%, and the level of democracy experienced by the average global citizen in 2021 is back at the level last recorded in 1989. The map below shows the state of democracy in 2020 based on V-Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index (LDI).
Confronted with such a worldwide surge in autocratization, world leaders have rejuvenated the idea of a global coalition of democracies. The first Summit for Democracy was held in December 2021 and a second one is planned for 2022. New initiatives such as Team Europe Democracy (TED) aim to strengthen democracy support.
Meanwhile, the V-Dem Institute’s “Case for Democracy” program distributes knowledge on the socio-economic and security benefits inherent in a more democratic world. To learn more about the Case for Democracy program, visit v-dem.net.
