IS DEMOCRACY IN RETREAT GLOBALLY? I – MEASUREMENT

                                                                              2006                       2015

North America                                                           8.64                        8.56

Latin America                                                            6.37                        6.37

Western Europe                                                         8.60                        8.42

Eastern Europe and CIS[2]                                         5.76                        5.55

Asia                                                                         5.44                        5.74

North Africa and Middle East[3]                                   3.53                        3.58

Sub-Saharan Africa                                                    4.24                        4.38       

World                                                                       5.62                        5.55

The most notable improvement has been in Asia, followed by sub-Saharan Africa.  The greatest decline has been in Eastern Europe and CIS, followed by Western Europe.  There has been a small decline in the world as a whole.  The picture which emerges from the EIU is little change in the world as a whole, but marked regional variation. 

 

Freedom House rates political rights and civil liberties on a scale of 1 to 7  (1=best, 7=worst) and then categorises countries as free if they have a combined score of five or less, partly free if they have a score between six and ten and not free if they have a score of eleven and above.  The position in 2016 compared with 2006 is as follows:

 

		2006				2016
		Free	Partly	Not free		Free	Partly	Not free
			free				free
Americas		24	9	2		23	11	1
Asia		16	12	11		16	14	9
North Africa and Middle East		1	6	11		2	3	13
Sub-Saharan Africa		11	23	14		9	20	20
Europe and Asia		37	8	7		36	11	7
World		89	58	45		86	59	50

Like the EIU, FH finds a slight deterioration globally over the last decade, with improvement in Asia and North Africa and the Middle East.  

 

FH also calculates an aggregate score based on 25 indicators.  Using this score, it notes that deteriorations have outnumbered improvements in each of the last ten years,  

 

The CSP divides countries into three categories:

• Democracies

• Anocracies

• Autocracies
 

 

The Polity IV indices are based on the general qualities of political institutions and processes, including executive recruitment, constraints on executive action, and political competition.  The indices are aggregated into a single index which ranges from -10 (fully institutionalized autocracy) to 10 (fully institutionalised democracy).  Countries scoring less than -5 are regarded as autocracies, those with scores between -5 and +5 are regarded as anocracies and countries scoring more than 5 are democracies.  

 

Anocracies are regarded as a middling category rather than a distinct form of governance. They are countries whose governments are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic but, rather, combine an often incoherent mix of democratic and autocratic traits and practices.  They reflect inherent qualities of instability or ineffectiveness.

 

The CSP graphs the numbers of democracies, anocracies and autocracies since 1945.  It shows that the second wave of democratization (between 1945 and 1960) was modest in relation to third wave (from the late 1980s to 2005).  It shows autocracies in steady decline since the mid-1970s, a recent stabilisation of the number of democracies and a recent rise in anocracies.  

 

Conclusion

 

Globally, there has been, at worst, a small decline in democracy since 2005, and that the large gains from the third wave, while not advancing in the last ten years, have mostly been preserved.  Regionally, Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa are most resistant to democracy, though there have been some gains in the latter two regions.

 

The next brief will consider issues of interpretation of these findings.

 

Charles Simkins
Senior Researcher
charles@hsf.org.za
 

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NOTES
[1] The first wave was the emergence of democracy from the late 18^th century to 1914.  The second wave was in the wake of the Second World War.