Authoritarians Threaten Global Democracy Reactionary sentiment led by dictators and authoritarians is assaulting democratic institutions across the globe, rolling back decades of social and economic progress. WORDS by LUCA D’AGRUMA and ADEN MEISEL ART by LUCA D’AGRUMA
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he 1990s were an era of democratization and liberalization, opening up the Soviet Bloc to western-style democracy and economies. Globalization broadened the marketplace in the 2000s, as Asia entered into the world and liberalized its economies and politics. But now, democratization has relapsed. Across the world, waves of reactionary and authoritarian sentiment are crashing into vulnerable democracies. In new and fragile democracies, reactionaries have seized power, and the tides are quickly rising in countries thought to be immune to illiberal politics. Authoritarians like Viktor Lukashenko in Belarus, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Victor Orbán in Hungary recently rose to power and quickly consolidated incredible authoritarian power within their government. The Economist’s Global Democracy Index, which ranks and scores 167 countries annually on five core democracy indicators, found that only 8.4% of the world’s population live in “full democracy” while over a third lives in authoritarian nations. In addition, the global score of 5.37/10 is the lowest since the index was founded in 2006.
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“One of the largest threats to democracy is that leaders with authoritarian tendencies are elected and then start to erode the institutions from within,” AP United States History and AP Comparative Government and Politics instructor Dena Montague said.
“...leaders with authoritarian tendencies are elected and then start to erode the institutions from within.” - Dena Montague “These leaders are very savvy about how they touch on people’s fears.” Issues from migration to LGBTQ+ rights are the driving forces behind reactionary backlash, in addition to real economic concerns. During the migrant crisis, when millions of refugees fled from northern Africa to Europe, Victor Orbán, the far-right German party AfD, and right wing French Presidential nominee
Marine Le Pen all capitalized on racist fears of Syrian migrants, insisting that the refugees would ruin their country’s culture. “When migration happens, many times we see that these political leaders use the migration crisis as a way to consolidate power, by saying ‘these people are threatening us,’ and so you have all of these things start to perpetuate this idea of ‘us against them’,” said Montague. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that “extreme anti-immigrant views have gained legitimacy and become part of the mainstream political debate over the past 10 years through a concerted push by anti-immigrant groups and political figures, including former President Trump, using stereotypes and outright bigotry to blame immigrants for various problems in America.” “We also have a problem with social media. Unfortunately, Facebook allows for a lot of misinformation to thrive and so there’s a level of mistrust of the mainstream media,” Montague said. Q-Anon and other conspiracies spread through alternative platforms, Whatsapp, and Twitter during 2020. thefourthestate.net
