The Global State Of Democracy Report, 2021:
The Global State of Democracy Report, 2021 was recently released by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
- The reports refer to three main regime types: democracies, hybrid and authoritarian regimes. Hybrid and authoritarian regimes are both classified as non-democratic.
Highlights of the Report:
- The number of countries moving towards authoritarianism in 2020 was higher than that of countries going in the other direction, towards democracy.
- 20 countries moved in the direction of authoritarianism, seven countries moved towards democracy.
- The pandemic has prolonged this existing negative trend into a five-year stretch, the longest such period since the start of the third wave of democratisation in the 1970s.
- Democratically elected Governments, including established democracies, are increasingly adopting authoritarian tactics.
- The report highlighted the case of Brazil and India as “some of the most worrying examples of backsliding”.
- However, India remained in the category of a mid-level performing democracy as it has since 2000.
- The United States and three members of the European Union [Hungary, Poland and Slovenia] have also seen concerning democratic declines.
- The Global State of Democracy 2021 reviews the state of democracy around the world over the course of 2020 and 2021, with democratic trends since 2015 used as contextual reference.
- It is based on analysis of events that have impacted democratic governance globally since the start of the pandemic, based on various data sources, including International IDEA’s Global Monitor of Covid-19’s Impact on Democracy and Human Rights, and International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices.
- The GSoD Indices provide quantitative data on democratic quality for the same countries, based on 28 aspects of democracy up until the end of 2020.
