The Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index for last year concludes that only 23 out of 167 countries are “full democracies,” representing only 8.4 percent of the world’s population.
How has this occurred when so many people have given their lives defending or building representative democracy?
Eighty percent of Afghans risked their personal safety in 2004 to vote in their first presidential election.
One — Sima Samar, later deputy president in the Afghan Transitional Administration — struggled for democracy as chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.
Freedom House, a US civil society organization begun by former US first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, now ranks both countries as “not free.”
Once a parliamentary democracy, Myanmar was under military rule from 1962 to 2011. Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy was elected in 1990, 2010, 2015 and last year, but often could not take its seats.
Since Feb. 1, when the Burmese military staged another coup, the world has seen it kill more than 730 protesters, including children, for engaging in nonviolent resistance.
Although liberalization has since 2010 brought some political rights and economic opportunities to most Burmese, it is only for those who are “recognized” and “belong.”
Myanmar systematically excludes specific minority groups — particularly the Rohingya, who have faced discrimination and repression to the point of genocide.
Functioning democracies do not oppress, segregate, terrorize or murder.
They value diversity, inclusiveness and respect for everyone by upholding the rule of law premised on citizen equality.
They have independent judiciaries separated from the legislative and executive branches. Reliance on a vigorous judiciary helps makes it possible for minorities and marginalized groups to be equal members of society.
Democracy implies freedoms of speech, association, assembly and belief/non-belief as long as one does not infringe on the liberty of others. Along with strong non-governmental groups, democracies must seek to enshrine responsibilities and freedoms in constitutions, laws and probably, above all, cultures.
Freedom House deems Ukraine (excluding Crimea and the eastern Donbas region) “partly free.”
However, Russian troop movements — which the Kremlin describes as a prelude to a training exercise — have reportedly brought 85,000 soldiers close to Ukraine’s eastern border and the line of control in Crimea, thus renewing fear of invasion in brave Ukrainians who strive for a democratic homeland.
Belarus in fall last year emerged as a fleeting bright spot, when citizens rose up to dispute the results of a fraudulent election.
Their protests put Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the defensive as people awakened to their democratic potential, despite brutal crackdowns, mass arrests and torture. Lukashenko remains in power, despite ongoing resistance.
What is the source of the democratic spirit that motivates such bravery?
When former Czech president Vaclav Havel, whose criticisms of totalitarian rule helped destroy it in nonviolent revolutions that brought down the Berlin Wall in 1989, commented on his own country’s new-found freedom, he asked: “Where did [Czechoslovakia’s] young people ... [find] their desire for truth, their love of free thought, their political ideas, their civic courage?”
The answer lies in the human desire to choose the types of societies we want to build for ourselves — ones grounded on values of human dignity for all and the rule of law.
If Havel were alive today, he would be proud that his homeland is still deemed “free.”
Representative democracy is probably essential for a peaceful, prosperous world with equality for all.
With the COVID-19 economic crisis, democracies face enormous pressures and new opportunities. The turmoil tests our commitment to democratic principles and best governance practices.
International institutions must accord incrementally more weight to human rights, the rule of law and multiparty democracy.
We must safeguard and enhance our democratic practices, and help strengthen democracies abroad, always remembering that it begins with each of us as individual citizens.
The number of full democracies in the 1970s doubled by the 1990s because of efforts by determined democrats.
Today, their successors in many nations need to recognize that this governance model is in disfavor, in part because it is seen to benefit “1 percenters” disproportionately.
The age of “robber barons” a century ago has become for many that of gig tech tycoons, who care little for their employees, fellow citizens or democracy.
Among a host of initiatives that could help reverse negative perceptions are robust pro-competition legislation and enforcement, raising corporate taxes and banning offshore accounts in tax havens, bringing in election spending and donation limits, and raising minimum pay.
About 600,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared offshore from Canada alone since 2000; this must be reversed as quickly as possible. Democratic governance can flourish once again.
David Kilgour is a former Canadian Cabinet minister.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs