Who is killing Democracy?

By J. Dhopte

Authoritarian regimes have made a concerted effort to shrink the space available for civil society by restricting access to domestic decision-making, transparency, and accountability. An ultimate power ruler is known as an autocrat. A democracy's three branches of government — executive, judicial, and legislative — serve as an essential check on an executive leader's unchecked and uncontested power. The executive branch has grown at the expense of other branches by elected officials who regularly show disdain for the democratic principle of the separation of powers.

 

Globally, political officials have reinforced their executive departments through the weakening of the independence and authority of the Supreme Courts. Global democracies are facing a serious threat from elected officials who occasionally refuse to step down from office. Autocracies eventually arise when a government functions without considering the needs of the very people who elected it.

 

De-globalization, hyper-nationalism, protectionist sentiments, and divisive politics are all sharply rising. Anti-intellectual movements and sectarian politics are developing. A pluralistic worldview and secularism are under constant attack. There has been an increase in attacks on minority groups, and religion has virtually taken centre stage in all political discussions.

 

Until 2005, the number of democracies in the world had been steadily increasing. But since then, the number has declined. Even robust democracies are now showing signs of weakness, and some have turned into hybrid regimes suspended between democracy and autocracy. Who is killing off the world's democracies?

Some autocrats or political elites are violent and intolerable. Their goals are to nationalize capitalism and seize control of the state for totalitarian purposes. They use narratives associated with right-wing populism and nationalism to rewrite history. They give the "corporate state" the illusion of democratic legitimacy. They simply ignore public concerns about freedom, justice, equality, and social discussion. Despite massive protests and opposition to their policies, they offer more undemocratic answers to urgent problems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Dhopte
• Release date: Apr 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224432226

J. Dhopte

The author J. Dhopte graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (India) with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering. He got a Diploma in Marine Engineering and a Master’s in Financial Management also. He started his career in the Merchant Navy, working on the ships. He worked in the Merchant Navy traveling around the world for 10 years. He worked as a Chief Engineer on ships, Chief Engineer in a hotel, and Maintenance Manager in a manufacturing industry.  Currently, he is working as a Professor in Nasik, India. He started writing in March 2020, when the Government ordered a nationwide. Since then, he has written ten books which are going to be published this year.The author J. Dhopte graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur (India) with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering. He got a Diploma in Marine Engineering and a Master’s in Financial Management also. He started his career in the Merchant Navy, working on the ships. He worked in the Merchant Navy traveling around the world for 10 years. He worked as a Chief Engineer on ships, Chief Engineer in a hotel, and Maintenance Manager in a manufacturing industry.  Currently, he is working as a Professor in Nasik, India. He started writing in March 2020, when the Government ordered a nationwide. Since then, he has written ten books which are going to be published this year.

Book preview

PART I -  Democracy in Crisis

Chapter 1. Democratic Erosion 

Chapter 2. Democracy Backsliding 

Chapter 3. Democracy is Losing 

PART II - Democracy getting killed by corporations

Chapter 4. Corporatocracy 

Chapter 5. Who has more power- State or Corporations? 

Chapter 6. The Power of Multinational Corporations 

Chapter 7.  How Corporate Power Killed Democracy?

PART III - People and Democracy

Chapter 8. Are We Smart Enough for Democracy? 

Chapter 9. Voter Ignorance 

Chapter 10. Mirror for Society 

Chapter 11. Epistocracy 

PART IV -  Save Democracy

Chapter 12. How to Save Democracy? 

Chapter 13. How to defeat Corporatocracy? 

Chapter 14. Responsibilities and Civic Duties

PART I

DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority which one man has to, control the liberty of another.

-  B. R. Ambedkar

Chapter 1

DEMOCRATIC EROSION

Democracy under Siege

Democratic erosion is defined as a decline in democratic quality manifested by a statistically significant decline in at least one aspect of democracy. Democratic backsliding, defined as the sustained and deliberate subversion of basic democratic tenets by political actors and governments, is on the verge of becoming a new type of pandemic. In the largest and wealthiest non-Western countries, there is an increasing incidence of - democratic breakdowns, democratic backsliding or stagnation and poor performance of new democracies according to various measures of good governance and rule of law. The absolute number of democracies has been decreasing since 2015. The number of democratically regressive countries has never been greater than in the last decade. In fact, 70% of the world's population now lives in either non-democratic regimes or democratically regressive countries. Only 9 % of the world's population lives in high-performing democracies.

More democracies than ever before are experiencing democratic erosion. More than a quarter of the world's population now lives in democracies which are in decline. They account for more than two-thirds of the world's population, along with those living in outright non-democratic regimes. Fully fledged authoritarian regimes are also growing in number, and their leaders are acting ever more brazenly. These regimes are buoyed by a lack of sufficient geopolitical pressure and support from other autocratic powers. Some of them thrive on the narrative that authoritarian governance is more effective for economic prosperity and pandemic management. Citizens of democracies are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their institutions, and they are increasingly drawn to alternative, even autocratic, regime forms.

Electoral integrity is increasingly being questioned, often without evidence, even in established democracies. The former US President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations during the 2020 US presidential election have had spillover effects, including in Brazil, Mexico, Myanmar, and Peru, among others.

The uneven global distribution of COVID -19 vaccines, as well as anti-vaccine normalizing restrictions on basic freedoms. Incumbent leaders are utilizing more and more violence to silence critics and settle disputes, while embattled activists—who lack effective international support—are frequently subjected to lengthy prison terms, torture, or even murder. The enemies of freedom have pushed the false narrative that democracy is in decline because it is incapable of addressing people’s needs. Over the past few years, oppressive and frequently violent authoritarian forces have repeatedly tilted the balance of power in their favour, taking advantage of both the strengths of nondemocratic systems and the weaknesses of ailing democracies.

There have been accusations that democracy is inherently inferior as a result of the continued deterioration. This viewpoint is supported by official commentators from China and Russia who want to increase their global influence without being held accountable for wrongdoings as well as antidemocratic actors who see a chance to consolidate control within democracies. Both of them are promoting and accelerating the disintegration of democracy.

DEMOCRACY’S DEFENDERS sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favour of tyranny. The countries experiencing deterioration outnumbered those with improvements by the largest margin recorded since the negative trend began in 2006. The long democratic recession is deepening.

The impact of the long-term democratic decline has become increasingly global in nature, broad enough to be felt by those living under the brutal dictatorships as well as by citizens of long-standing democracies. Nearly 75 % of the world’s population lived in a country that faced deterioration in the last 10 years.

The Effects of COVID-19

The proliferation of COVID-19, which began in early 2020, has made the decline of freedom more pronounced. Governments in all democracies have utilized excessive monitoring, discriminatory limits on rights to movement and assembly, and arbitrary or violent enforcement of such restrictions by law enforcement and non-state actors. The communication infrastructures of many nations were inundated by waves of false and misleading information, some of which were created on purpose by political leaders and endangered lives. Ultimately, the changes precipitated by the pandemic left many societies—with varied regime types, income levels, and demographics—in worse political condition, with more pronounced racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities, and vulnerable to long-term effects. Marginalized populations are bearing the brunt of both the virus and its economic impact, which has exacerbated income inequality among other disparities. The world's best-performing nations have seen a decline in freedom for a number of years. The percentage of non-free nations is at its highest point in the previous 15 years. Less than 20 percent of the world's population now resides in free countries, the smallest percentage since 1995, as a result of India's descent to partly free.

In already oppressive situations, repression exacerbates the harm done to their institutions and communities, making it harder for any future government to satisfy the public's expectations for freedom and prosperity. The erroneous narrative that democracy is failing because it can't meet people's wants has been spread by those who oppose freedom. In actuality, democracy is deteriorating because its most notable representatives are not doing enough to safeguard it.

Doubts about Democracy

Because of authoritarian weakness, many nations momentarily benefited from pluralism by default, but they never genuinely achieved democracy. Since their governments were mistakenly categorized as democratic in the first place, the consolidation of authoritarianism that has taken place in many of them should not be interpreted as a sign of democratic collapse. Between 1975 and 1985, democracy started to advance significantly over the world. In the years 1985 to 1995, it then made astonishing progress. Then, its advancement slowed, and only moderate improvements were made in the ensuing decade, with peak scores sometime in the early 2000s.

Since then, there has been no pattern at all resembling the reverse waves, only stasis or very slight decline. Stagnation or other negative terms can be used to describe the absence of democratic progress. The optimistic long-term scenario presupposes that democracy remains the goal that countries are seeking. And this in turn is likely to depend on its being viewed both as the global standard of political legitimacy and as the best system for achieving the kind of prosperity and effective governance that almost all countries seek. What has changed most dramatically in recent years is that these presuppositions are increasingly being called into question. There are three chief reasons for this shift: 

1) The growing sense that the advanced democracies are in trouble in terms of their economic and political performance. 

2) The new self-confidence and seeming vitality of some authoritarian countries; and

3) The shifting geopolitical balance between the democracies and their rivals.

The 2008 financial crisis and its ongoing economic repercussions, such as the recession and rising unemployment rates, were the primary causes of the first of these. These setbacks for the advanced democracies challenged the idea that the institutions and policies of the West were deserving of imitation by the rest at a time when emerging-market nations were expanding quickly. The advanced democracies' appeal was further diminished by the political dysfunction that plagued them as they attempted to address the crisis.

Many people throughout the world now have very low opinions of democracy as a result of its struggles in both the US and Europe. The growing influence of certain prominent authoritarian regimes has been the flip side of democracy's declining reputation. The most notable of these is China; whose capacity to advance economically significantly without enacting democratic reforms has called into question the idea that democracy is the only suitable political system for prosperous nations.

China is also offering alternative non-Western markets, trading partners and sources of military and development aid to African governments. This help is unrelated to concerns about human rights or political accountability in the receiving states. Not only China is an aggressive nondemocratic power, in order to impede the development of democracy, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela have also been exchanging knowledge and even working together directly.

Today it does seem that authoritarianism has the wind at its back, even if it has not yet spread to many more countries. Authoritarians have made in the realm of soft power, especially in major regional and multilateral organizations. Countries such as Russia and China are ramping up their cultural diplomacy and international broadcasting while Western efforts in these fields have been unfocused and underfunded. The advanced democracies are looking weaker in terms of hard power as well, shrinking their defence budgets even as authoritarian states spend more on arms. In 2014, these trends became manifest.

The rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, amid the disappointed hopes of the Arab Spring (outside Tunisia) and worries about Afghanistan, made it clear that Western efforts to impose some kind of order and to encourage democracy in the broader Middle East were not succeeding. Meanwhile, China’s muscle-flexing in the East and South China Seas seemed to foreshadow a return to the use of force in Asia. And Russia’s brazen annexation of Crimea and stealth invasion of Ukraine showed that the rules-based international order built by democratic powers could no longer be taken for granted. Moreover, China and Russia take a militaristic stance toward the outside world, with any compromises being tactical in nature and not intended to persist.

The liberal world order is coming apart under pressure from the authoritarians. In a globe divided into spheres of influence and power blocs, a country’s ability to follow a democratic path will be determined above all by its international alliances and its geography. It increasingly looks as if the fate of democracy in the countries of the post-communist world will depend on which side of the emerging border between Russia and the EU they find themselves. This new salience of geopolitics threatens to change the rules of the game. It may both limit the centrality of the internal balance of forces in shaping a country’s regime choices and increase the chances that the imposition of external force will be decisive. Moreover, if the geopolitical balance appears to be tilting the authoritarians’ way, they will seem much more attractive to the many individuals and nations that seek to be on the stronger side. Under these conditions, democracy would lose much of its lustre.

Chapter 2

DEMOCRACY BACKSLIDING

In Sudan in 2019, after long-time ruler Omar al- Bashir was ousted following massive popular protests, a transitional government was put in place. However, Sudan’s transition towards democracy has been fraught with challenges, including flare-ups of conflict in the Darfur region, accusations of excessive use of police force in the enforcement of COVID restrictions, the stalling of the creation of a legislative body, and protests against economic reforms. The second coup attempt in 2021, which took place in October, risks the progress made to date.

In Afghanistan, the departure of the US military allowed the Taliban to quickly take over the country. Having ousted the elected leadership, the Taliban’s newly announced government is all male and includes many individuals accused of terrorist activities over the last two decades.

Mali held difficult elections in 2020, when parts of the country were barred from voting due to jihadist insurgencies and the opposition leader was kidnapped just days before the election. Between 2020 and 2021, two coups dimmed the prospects for democratisation and free elections.

In Tunisia, the democratic process was disrupted in July 2021—the only democratic success story emerging from the Arab Spring—as the president deposed the prime minister and suspended parliament until further notice, invoking emergency powers.

The military in Myanmar, which has been trying to democratise since 2015, used fabricated evidence of a fraudulent election to support a coup in February 2021 that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi's administration and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The elected government officials, election officials, lawmakers from various political parties, pro-democracy activists, and journalists were all detained by the armed forces, who then ruled that the election results from November 2020 were invalid.

NON-DEMOCRATIC REGIMES have become more authoritarian in the last five years.

The percentage of non-democratic regimes with statistically significant declines on at least one sub- attribute over a five-year period increased from 21 % in 2015 to 45 % in 2020, the highest ever.

Hybrid regimes with the greatest number of sub-attributes registering five-year democratic declines in 2020 were: Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Serbia, Tanzania, Turkey, and Zambia (although the opposition’s victory in the Zambian election in 2021 may reverse these declines).

Hybrid regimes have seen declines in a greater number of democratic aspects, particularly during the pandemic. Some hybrid regimes have also used the shield of the pandemic to drop any semblance of democracy and tighten their grip on power without fear of significant international condemnation.

In 2020, Brazil had the most characteristics that were in decline than any other democracy. While President Jair Bolsonaro has played down the outbreak and sent contradictory signals, the pandemic management has been dogged by corruption scandals and demonstrations. By charging magistrates of the Superior Electoral Court with planning to engage in electoral fraud in relation to the 2022 elections and criticizing the media, the President has openly questioned Brazil's democratic institutions. The President has further stated that he will defy the decisions of the Supreme Federal Court, which is looking into him for distributing misleading information about the nation's electoral process.

In Hungary, human rights organisations and the international community recoiled when the parliament, which is dominated by Fidesz, the political party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, gave the government the authority to rule by decree without time limits to control the pandemic and enacted prison terms of up to five years for spreading misinformation about the virus. This was changed to a state of medical emergency in June 2021, which is in effect until December 2021 and cannot be lifted by parliament. If passed, a number of new measures will favour the party of the current government and threaten the fair playing field for opposition parties in the legislative elections of 2022.

The government stopped providing financial support to municipalities run by parties in opposition. The campaign for more executive power was consistent with the decade-long process of power consolidation that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been leading. A telling step was taken in December when the compliant parliament approved constitutional amendments that handed over public assets to organisations run by supporters of the ruling party, reduced independent oversight of government spending, and effectively forbade same-sex couples from adopting children in order to appease the base of the ruling party.

The Philippines has deepened its democratic backsliding through increased militarization of the pandemic response and a crackdown on free media. President Rodrigo Duterte imposed a strict lockdown, during which the government increased harassment and arrests of social media users, particularly those who criticized the government's reaction to the outbreak. The government used a number of anti-terrorism laws to target opponents and to consolidate power in the name of addressing the pandemic. The war on drugs has resulted in a huge rise in the number of murders, which have been committed with nearly complete impunity and no oversight. Additionally, several restrictions, legal actions, and prosecutions with political motivations have occurred.

In Slovenia, the number of restrictions on the government and civil freedoms has decreased between 2016–2017. The EU, as well as regional and international organizations have expressed concern over the intimidation of journalists, defamation lawsuits against media organizations, budget reductions for NGOs, and measures that attempted to increase police and surveillance authority. Additionally, worries about political pressures on the judiciary have been voiced.

In Poland, incumbent candidate Andrzej Duda, backed by the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, won re-election after heavy criticism for initially trying to bypass parliament and the National Electoral Commission to move forward with an all-vote-by-mail presidential election. Criticism was raised about unconstitutional changes to the electoral law less than six months before the election, the removal of functions from the National Electoral Commission, and covid-19 restrictions on campaigning that favour the incumbent party, which controls public broadcasting and which resorted to xenophobic, homophobic, and antisemitic rhetoric, as well as the misuse of state resources. Since then, restrictive abortion legislation has been passed despite public outcry, journalists have faced increasing restrictions, and LGBTQIA+ activists have continued to face harassment and arrests through the establishment of LGBT-free zones. The judiciary, already severely weakened in its independence and politicized prior to the pandemic, has continued to face restrictions.

In Côte d’Ivoire, arrests of opposition politicians ahead of the 2020 elections were made using their spread of fake news on Covid -19 as a justification.

In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega has severely repressed opposition candidates, independent journalists, and civil society activists ahead of the 2021 elections.

In Kyrgyzstan, election results were annulled in October 2020 following mass protests, and a new vote was held in 2021.

Serbia, which has been backsliding, finally became a hybrid regime in 2020. Throughout this period, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) had constrained and discredited civil society and enacted restrictions on free media; there were also voting day irregularities (from vote buying to multiple voting). In 2020, parliamentary elections were largely contested, with accusations of the misuse of public resources and an uneven playing field.

In Azerbaijan, last year, Nagorno-Karabakh served as a demonstration of the use of military force by authoritarian nations. When the Azerbaijani government began an offensive in September to settle a territorial issue with Armenia that had gone unresolved for years through diplomacy, Turkey provided crucial backing. A minimum of 6,500 fighters, hundreds of civilians, and tens of thousands of others were forced to flee their homes. Meaningful international engagement was lacking, and the conflict was only resolved when Moscow forced a peacekeeping scheme on the parties, repairing the territorial gains made by the Azerbaijani military but leaving many other issues unresolved.

Peru experienced one of its worst political crises following a divisive presidential election in November 2020. Candidate Keiko Fujimori, who lost the election, rejected the results and claimed that the election was rigged in favour of the winning candidate, Pedro Castillo.

Ethiopia - The country’s fragile gains in democratic progress in recent years were imperiled after the ruling party in the Tigray Region held elections in September against the will of the federal authorities and labelled Abiy’s government illegitimate. Tigrayan forces later attacked a military base, leading to an overwhelming response from federal forces and allied ethnic militias that displaced tens of thousands of people and led to untold civilian casualties.

In Venezuela, which has experienced a dizzying decline over the last 15 years, some hope arose in 2019 when opposition National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó appeared to present a serious challenge to the rule of dictator Nicolás Maduro. The opposition named Guaidó as interim president under the constitution, citing the illegitimacy of the presidential election that kept Maduro in power. In 2020, however, as opponents of the regime continued to face extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention, Maduro regained the upper hand. Tightly controlled National Assembly elections went forward despite an opposition boycott, creating a new body with a ruling party majority. The old opposition-led legislature hung on in a weakened state, extending its own term as its electoral legitimacy ebbed away.

In August, when voters suddenly rose up to challenge the rigged results of a seriously defective election, Belarus became another ephemeral shining spot. For a few weeks, the protests seemed to put Alyaksandr Lukashenka on the defensive as people began to realize their democratic potential despite savage crackdowns, mass arrests, and torture. Previously, it was assumed that his repressive rule would continue. However, Lukashenka was still in charge at the beginning of 2021 despite persistent opposition, and protests—while smaller in scope—were still greeted with detentions. Political freedoms and civil liberties are now considerably more constrained than before, and democracy still seems like a long way off.

Indonesia turned to the