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Walk the talk on democracy
Also not clear is Biden’s summit democratic agenda, when many leaders invited are authoritarian, some from countries that fall within Freedom House’s category of “Partly Free” and three within the “Not Free” group.
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wo separate international events this week will bring together leaders and governments to discuss democracy, timely and appropriate since democracy is declining in many parts of the world, including in India, the United States and Indonesia, the three largest democracies in the world.
On Thursday, Indonesia will host the annual Bali Democracy Forum, taking up the question of how democracy can address problems of poverty, inequality and exclusivism, all of which have grown, particularly during these last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The forum on Thursday will see representatives from 46 governments and organizations attending either in person or online.
On Thursday and Friday, US President Joe Biden will host an online Summit for Democracy, to be attended by more than 100 countries selected primarily but not exclusively for their commitment to democracy. This is a fulfillment of Biden’s 2020 election campaign to restore faith in democracy at home and around the world, with the US providing the global leadership.
It is not clear however whether these two gatherings will truly address the fundamental problem of why democracy around the world is deteriorating in the first place.
The Bali event seems to assume that there is nothing wrong with democracy, and that nations should just get on with the business of addressing the problems of economic and social injustice caused by the pandemic.
Also not clear is Biden’s summit democratic agenda, when many leaders invited are authoritarian, some from countries that fall within Freedom House’s category of “Partly Free” and three within the “Not Free” group. The US too has serious credentials problems to call itself a democracy.
The US summit will polarize the world into two camps. One group the nations that the host decides are democratic, while the other, including China and Russia, fall by the US definition into the authoritarian camp. Given the widely mixed records in their commitment to democracy among leaders invited by Biden, we should not raise our hopes too much about what the summit will produce.
Democracy is sick, so read the headlines in countries with strong democratic traditions like France, the United Kingdom and the US these last few years. The trend toward authoritarianism is found in these countries too, raising questions about their ability to sustain democracy and hence protect various freedoms.
According to the International Institute for Democracy Electoral Assistance, the US last year joined the annual list of "backsliding" democracies for the first time. More than one in four people in the world now live in a backsliding democracy, the Stockholm-based think tank said in its annual Global State of Democracy report.
Freedom House, in its latest report on the state of freedom around the world, says nearly 75 percent of the world’s population lived in a country that faced deterioration last year. With India’s decline to “Partly Free”, now less than 20 percent of the world’s population live in a free country, the smallest proportion since 1995, according to Freedom House.
We welcome the two events this week to put democracy back on the center stage amid these disturbing reports of democratic regressions. Biden in his summit, and Indonesia in hosting the Bali forum, should make sure they address the problem of democracy itself.
Treating the symptoms but not addressing the real cause of why democracy is declining will not likely put an end to what Freedom House describes as a "long democratic recession".
