INTERNATIONAL SECURITY Is democracy declining or just being redefined?
As the West laments a global decline in its version of democracy, China suggests its own brand of democracy as a replacement. It’s part of an increasingly contested space, writes Nicholas Dynon, at the discursive end of great power competition.
Nicholas Dynon is chief editor of Line of Defence Magazine, and a widely published commentator on New Zealand’s defence, national security and private security sectors.
26
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern participated recently in the virtual Summit for Democracy, a conclave hosted by US President Joe Biden of 100 invited representatives of countries boasting varying democratic credentials. In thanking the president for the invitation, the prime minister noted the challenges posed by Covid-19 and other events that “threaten to disconnect and divide us.” Indeed Biden himself warned that democratic erosion represents “the defining challenge of our time,” and a chorus of commentators and think-tanks agree with him. According to Stockholmbased International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), 2020 was the fifth consecutive year in which the
number of countries moving in the direction of authoritarianism outpaced those moving toward democracy. Washington-based Freedom House, asserts that authoritarianism has been on the rise while democracy has declined for the past 15 consecutive years. During this period, says Freedom House, more than twice as many countries (119) have experienced declines in political rights and civil liberties than have experienced improvements (55). The organisation calculates that less than 20 percent of the global population lives in what it regards a ‘free country’, the lowest percentage since 1995. Contributing to these figures, states International IDEA, is the fact that the number of ‘backsliding’ democracies has doubled in the past decade. Among
Line of Defence
