風蕭蕭_Frank
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歐洲民主倒退的本質
https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/07/24/nature-of-democratic-backsliding-in-europe-pub-76868
斯塔凡·林德伯格 2018 年 7 月 24 日
Staffan Ingemar Lindberg
Professor Department of Political Science
摘要：歐洲民主正在衰落，越來越獨裁的領導人通過針對媒體自由、個人權利和法治來破壞冷戰後的自由秩序。
重塑歐洲民主
本文是重塑歐洲民主項目的一部分，該項目是卡內基民主、衝突和治理項目和卡內基歐洲的一項倡議。
在歐洲，與世界上大多數其他地區一樣，民主正在倒退，獨裁正在抬頭。 然而歐洲麵臨的挑戰尤其值得注意。 盡管人們普遍認為民主倒退始於選舉問題，但其他政治因素——例如侵犯個人權利和言論自由——是歐洲民主困境的核心。
斯塔凡·I·林德伯格 (Staffan I. Lindberg) 是民主多樣性 (V-Dem) 研究所所長，也是哥德堡大學政治學教授。
民主多樣性 (V-Dem) 指數是哥德堡大學 V-Dem 研究所的標誌性產品，通過對七種不同民主類型的獨特關注來考察全球民主狀況。 V-Dem 最近發布了 2017 年數據和年度《2018 年民主報告》，其中使用了 180 個國家 3,200 多名學者提供的評級匯總後的 400 多個民主、人權、公民自由和自由細節的詳細指標； 近五十個反映民主組成部分的指數，如問責製、婦女賦權、言論自由、廉潔選舉等； 以及民主的五個主要指數（選舉民主、自由民主、參與民主、協商民主和平等民主），為全球民主的狀況，特別是歐洲民主的形態提供了新的見解。
V-Dem 的數據顯示，全球獨裁化浪潮——民主品質的下降，可能導致民主的崩潰——在共產主義崩潰和民主在全球傳播後不到三十年就顯現出來，為二十一世紀的主導國家帶來了巨大希望。 通過自由民主。 過去十年，洪都拉斯、尼加拉瓜、俄羅斯、委內瑞拉、土耳其和烏克蘭的威權主義崛起，伴隨著巴西、印度、以色列和現在的美國等國家的大幅倒退，證明了《世界經濟展望》中表達的樂觀主義的錯誤。 20世紀90年代。 世界是否應該真正對歐洲民主的未來感到震驚？
令人警醒的全球形勢
第三次全球民主化浪潮始於 20 世紀 70 年代中期，並在 1980 年代和 1990 年代獲得動力，並在 1993 年至 1999 年間達到頂峰。在此期間，有 70 個國家在 V-Dem 的自由民主指數上每年取得顯著進步，而隻有 4 個國家達到了這一水平。 有六個國家逐年倒退。 這種民主進步對惡化的主導地位實際上從1978年一直持續到2010年左右。從那時起，民主進步的下降趨勢變得明顯，而民主倒退的國家數量卻在增加。 2017年，倒退的國家數量四十年來首次與進步的國家數量相匹配。
根據 V-Dem 2018 年的數據，1972 年至 2017 年世界民主的總體水平可以從兩個互補指標的角度來看待（見圖 1）：各國的傳統平均值（左圖）或加權平均值 每個國家的人口規模（右圖）。 隨著時間的推移，無論是水平還是趨勢都存在一些明顯的差異。
值得注意的是，如果考慮到人口規模，總體水平明顯較低，這意味著大國在實現民主方麵表現較差。 這也適用於世界多個地區，包括亞太地區、歐洲、拉丁美洲和加勒比地區。 它不適用於前蘇聯加盟共和國、撒哈拉以南非洲以及中東和北非。 非洲也是唯一一個在這兩項措施上都與當代獨裁化趨勢背道而馳的地區。
這意味著當考慮到人口規模時，專製化的聚集趨勢更加明顯。 按傳統國家平均水平計算的全球民主水平在 2010 年之後略有下降，但完全在置信區間內。 使用人口權重，下降更為明顯：按照這一標準，世界已經退回到大約二十五年前蘇聯解體後的最後一次記錄的民主水平。 世界人口的三分之一（25 億人）生活在當今全球獨裁化趨勢的國家中。
過去十年來，許多國家的民主得分發生了重大變化（見圖 2）。1 幾個人口大國和國家
1 近年來，一些人口大國的人口數量大幅下降，包括巴西、印度、俄羅斯、土耳其和美國。 值得注意的是，所有這些都是或曾經是民主國家。
雖然也有一些國家在民主方麵取得了進展，但它們往往人口較少，例如不丹、布基納法索、斐濟、斯裏蘭卡或瓦努阿圖。 尼日利亞是近十年來唯一一個在自由民主方麵取得實質性進展的人口大國。
歐洲的情況
歐洲的民主正在衰落，即使按照更傳統的衡量標準也是如此。 當按人口加權時，這一趨勢再次更加明顯。 按照後一種衡量標準，歐洲的民主水平已經倒退了四十年，回到了 1978 年的水平。這種下降與世界其他幾個地區的倒退一樣嚴重。
歐洲經常被描繪成比世界其他地區更先進的民主堡壘，也許除了美國和加拿大之外。 不過，盡管歐洲的平均民主水平仍然位居世界第二，但也僅以微弱優勢領先。 當按人口規模加權時，拉丁美洲的民主顯然可以與歐洲相媲美。
另一個重要的觀點是歐洲國家從一種政體向另一種政體的質變，特別是當這種轉變跨越民主與專製的鴻溝時（見表1）2。
過去十年來，歐洲的政權分類發生了六次轉變。 匈牙利、立陶宛、波蘭和斯洛伐克失去了自由民主國家的地位，向下轉型為選舉民主國家。 其中一些轉變已經持續了數年，但波蘭的獨裁化速度明顯加快，華沙的大部分變化發生在 2015 年至 2017 年之間。
幸運的是，迄今為止隻發生過一次徹底的民主崩潰。 在塞爾維亞，專製化已經發展到了民主不再受到維護的地步，即使是在最有限的選舉意義上也是如此。 在另一個緩慢發展的例子中，政府多年來以漸進的方式改變了其性質，塞爾維亞已成為一個選舉獨裁國家。
隻有阿爾巴尼亞已經過渡到更好的狀況，現在有資格成為自由民主國家。
總體而言，證據表明民主正在歐洲失去重要地位。
歐洲正在發生什麽變化？
V-Dem 的數據還可以幫助確定民主的哪些方麵正在減弱，哪些方麵更加牢固。 自由民主指數由選舉民主指數和反映更具體的自由主義關切的三個指數組成：法治對公民自由的保護以及對行政機關的司法和立法約束。
近年來推動大部分下降趨勢的指數是選舉民主指標（見圖 3），該指標在各個指數中跌幅最大。
繪製 V-Dem 選舉民主指數中的 25 項指標，顯示了 2007 年至 2017 年間每項指標顯著改善或下降的歐洲國家數量（見表 2）3。
值得注意的是，許多國家衡量言論自由和替代信息來源的指標大幅下降，而隻有極少數國家有所改善——隻有一個國家的媒體自我審查有所改善，兩個國家的媒體對政府的偏見有所減少。 此外，衡量公民社會在不受壓製或阻止的情況下自由組織的能力的廉潔選舉指數指標也表明民主倒退。
與此同時，幹淨選舉指數中幾乎所有純粹衡量選舉方麵的指標都顯示出改善。 特別是，選舉在程序上的自由和公平程度以及選民登記的質量（與選舉相關的兩個最基本的指標）記錄了進步的國家多於下降的國家。
這詳細地描繪了當前歐洲民主倒退的趨勢。 一些統治精英顯然追求不民主，但大多數觀察家認為代表民主的選舉製度迄今為止一直很健全，甚至有所改善。
相比之下，民主國家卻因不太明顯的違法行為而倒退。 媒體、學術界、民間社會組織和文化機構的言論自由以及政府和自我審查可能會受到誘導、恐嚇和拉攏等相對隱晦的手段的負麵影響。 政府逐漸限製自主行為者，削弱他們作為親民主行為者發揮作用的能力，同時巧妙地提高人們對此類措施的接受程度。 就其本身而言，
就其本身而言，每一步都顯得相對無關緊要。 然而，結果加起來現在已經很明顯了——如表 2 所示。至關重要的是，這正在削弱那些使選舉實踐成為重要而有效的民主工具的自由權利和製度。 這是一個有問題的發展，對歐洲民主的未來提出了明確的考驗。
歐洲在這方麵也不例外。 正如 V-Dem 研究所的《2018 年民主報告》中指出的那樣，當今世界各國都存在完全相同的專製化模式。 這不應該成為歐洲的安慰或放鬆的理由。 相反，在俄羅斯、土耳其和尼加拉瓜等不同國家，媒體、公民社會和言論自由受到破壞和削弱後，隨之而來的是更加戲劇化的獨裁統治，這令人不舒服地提醒人們注意歐洲的政治動蕩。 在20世紀30年代。
結論
歐洲的民主水平仍然接近有記錄以來的最高水平。 例如，阿爾巴尼亞最近轉變為自由民主國家。 然而，與全球其他地區一樣，過去十年的嚴重獨裁化可能會威脅到歐洲民主未來的生存能力。 一些國家最近從自由民主倒退到選舉民主，而其他國家則越來越多地出現獨裁統治。 這種倒退主要發生在媒體和公民社會——民主的非選舉軟肋，政府可以在不立即進行審查的情況下限製民主空間。
需要充分理解民主不同組成部分的微妙性和差異，才能正確應對歐洲民主麵臨的挑戰。 選舉機構和做法依然強勁（甚至正在改善）。 在許多國家，媒體自由、言論自由、替代信息來源以及法治正在受到破壞。
這些令人不安的結論符合政治學家南希·貝爾梅奧的觀察，即“最明目張膽的倒退形式”正在消失，而騷擾反對派和顛覆橫向問責製等秘密手段卻在增加：“民選高管一一削弱了對行政權力的製約 。 。 。 [並且]阻礙反對派力量挑戰行政偏好的力量。”4
同時觀察到消極和積極的趨勢。 重要的是要認識到歐洲社會的“民主性”正麵臨壓力。 從更廣泛的時間來看，當前的形勢還沒有像之前的危機時刻那麽糟糕； 與 20 世紀 70 年代相比，歐洲民主在大多數指標上仍然得分很高。 動蕩的時代並不是什麽新鮮事。 然而，最近的事態發展無疑給了我們暫停的空間。
V-Dem 的 2017 年民主報告得出的結論是，民主似乎仍然相對有彈性。5 今年的評估更加悲觀。 民主正在倒退。 獨裁化趨勢明顯。 與去年最明顯的區別是，現在有很多非常強大的國家加入了專製化浪潮，影響了數十億人，並向世界其他地區發出了非常強烈的信號。
斯塔凡·I·林德伯格 (Staffan I. Lindberg) 是民主多樣性 (V-Dem) 研究所所長，也是哥德堡大學政治學教授。
筆記
1 顏色代碼按世界各地區劃分，僅標記發生顯著變化超出置信區間的國家/地區。 這裏使用術語“置信區間”來表示貝葉斯最高後驗密度將相當於一個標準差的可信區域。 有關 V-Dem 測量模型和置信區間計算的詳細信息，請參閱 Daniel Pemstein 等人，“V-Dem 測量模型：跨國家和跨時間專家編碼數據的潛在變量分析”，Varieties 哥德堡大學民主研究所，2018 年 4 月，https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/5a/23/5a231d27-8f14-4b87-9a27-1536d6a2e482/v-dem_working_paper_2018_21_3.pdf。
2 Anna Lührmann、Marcus Tannenberg 和 Staffan I. Lindberg，“世界政權 (RoW)：為政治政權比較研究開辟新途徑”，《政治與治理》6，第 1 期。 1（2018）：60-77。
3 橙色條表示在特定指標上倒退的國家數量，而藍色條則表示前進的國家數量。 這些指標的排序使得位於左側的國家表示進步的國家多於下降的國家，而表中右側的國家則相反。
4 南希·貝爾梅奧（Nancy Bermeo），“論民主倒退”，《民主雜誌》27，第 1 期。 3（2016）：5-19。
5 Anna Lührmann 等人，“黃昏的民主？ V-Dem 2017 年年度報告，”民主研究所的多樣性，哥德堡大學，2017 年 5 月，https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/91/14/9114ff4a-
Staffan Ingemar Lindberg
生於 1969 年，是瑞典政治學家、民主多樣性 (V-Dem) 研究所首席研究員以及哥德堡大學 V-Dem 研究所所長。 瑞典哥德堡大學政治學係教授，瑞典青年科學院院士，瓦倫堡學院院士，政府質量研究所研究員； 奧斯陸分析公司的高級顧問。主要研究比較政治學、民主與民主化、非洲、政治組織、腐敗和依附主義。
Staffan I. Lindberg (born 1969), is a Swedish political scientist, Principal Investigator for Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute and Director of the V-Dem Institute[1] at the University of Gothenburg. He is a professor in the Department of Political Science, and member of the Board of University of Gothenburg, Sweden[2] member of the Young Academy of Sweden, Wallenberg Academy Fellow, Research Fellow at the Quality of Government Institute; and senior advisor for the Oslo Analytica.
Lindberg's main research interests are comparative politics,[3] democracy and democratization,[4] Africa, political organizations,[5] corruption[6] and clientelism.
https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/staffanilindberg
Professor Department of Political Science
About Staffan Ingemar Lindberg
Professor, Dept. of Pol. Sci., Univ. of Gothenburg, xlista@gu.se
Founding Director, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg,
PI, V-Dem Project, Varieties of Democracy, sil@v-dem.net
Wallenberg Academy Fellow 2014-2018 + prolongation 2019-2023
ERC Consolidator Grant, 2017-2022
Background
Staffan I. Lindberg holds a PhD (2005) from Lund University, Sweden. His dissertation won the American Political Science Association's Juan Linz Award for best dissertation 2005. He was assistant professor at Kent State University (2005-2006), assistant/associate professor at University of Florida (2006-2013), and has been with University of Gothenburg since 2010, full professor since 2013.
Interests
Comparative Politics, Democracy and Democratization, Africa, Political Institutions, Public Opinion, Representation, Legislatures, Members of Parliament, Corruption and Clientelism
Editorial/Executive Boards
Chair, Scientific Committe, Infrastructure Grants, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2019-present.
Member, Expert Group for Aid Studies, 2019-present.
Member, Editorial Board, Politics and Governance, Democratization, African Journal of Democracy, Journal of Geopolitics, History, and International Relations.
Chair , Scientific Committee, Support to Research Infrastructure, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.
Current Research
Lindberg's main current occupation is as Director of the V-Dem Institute at University of Gothenburg and one of four Principal Investigators for Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The research infrastructure and the data collection of the V-Dem Institute at University of Gothenburg is now part of the national research infrastructure Demscore which Lindberg also is PI and Director for, supported by financially by Swedish Research Council and the four participating universities (universities of Gothenburg, Uppsala, Stockholm, and Umeå). The research infrastructure at the V-Dem Institute is also supported by the EU (EC/INTPA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Sweden, and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Previously, support has come from among others, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Ministry of Foreign Affairs-DK, CIDA, NORAD, the National Science Foundations of Norway and Denmark, as well as through ERC research grants to Anja Neurndorff/Nottingham University and Carl Henrik Knutsen/University of Oslo.
See also the V-Dem Institute's homepage at University of Gothenburg, and the program V-Dem website. He and his collaborators were awarded the prestigeous "Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Data Set Award 2016” for best data set in comparative politics. American Political Science Association, Comparative Politics Section.
Lindberg leads several research programs at the V-Dem Institute, including the "Failing and Successful Sequences of Democratisation", Varieties of Autocracy", "Endangered Democracies", and "Case for Democracy" supported by the ERC, K&A Wallenberg Foundation, M&M Wallenberg Foundation, Swedish Research Council, the EU (EC/INTPA), and University of Gothenburg. More information about these research programs can also be found at the V-Dem website.
He is a Wallenberg Academy Scholar, former member of the Young Academy of Sweden & Professor of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; holder of an ERC consolidator Grant, and member of several advisory and executive boards, including the expert group for aid studies (EBA) linked to the Swedish government. He has previous served on Board of University of Gothenburg, the executive of APSA's Comparative Politics Section, as Editor and Vice-Chair of the APCG, the co-PI for the research consortium “African Power and Politics” 2007-2009, and has won 40+ grants from both US and in European funders.
His book, Democracy and Elections in Africa (Johns Hopkins UP, 2006) demonstrates the positive causal effect of elections on the spread of democracy. It was awarded "Outstanding Title" by Chocie in 2007. In a collaborative follow-up project, the causal role of elections in processes of both autocratization and democratization were investigated on a global scale. Lindberg is the editor of the resulting volume Democratization by Elections - A New Mode of Transition (Johns Hopkins UP, 2009), as well as co-author of Varieties of Democracy (CUP 2020), Why Democracies Develop and Decline (CUP 2022). His articles on women’s representation, political clientelism, voting behavior, party and electoral systems, democratization, popular attitudes, and the Ghanaian legislature and executive-legislative relationships have appeared in for example AJPS, World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, Political Science Quarterly, World Development, Party Politics, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, Studies in International Comparative Development, Journal of Democracy, International Political Science Review, Political Science Research and Methods, Government and Opposition, Journal of Modern African Studies, and Democratization. Lindberg has worked as election observer several times and been appraiser and reviewer of donors program in several Africa countries.
He has also done in-depth work on Ghana, and has published on political clientelism, voting behavior and party alignment, as well as the workings of the Ghanaian legislature. He taught at Lund University, then Kent State University and University of Florida where he was Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. He spent two years in Ghana as parliamentary advisor, and consults on a regular basis for donors in Africa.
More information can also be found at:
Public Google Scholar:
http://scholar.google.se/citations?user=aW96DOEAAAAJ
SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=864348
?The Nature of Democratic Backsliding in Europe
https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/07/24/nature-of-democratic-backsliding-in-europe-pub-76868
STAFFAN I. LINDBERG JULY 24, 2018
Summary: European democracy is in decline, as increasingly authoritarian leaders undermine the post–Cold War liberal order by targeting media freedom, individual rights, and the rule of law.
This article is part of the Reshaping European Democracy project, an initiative of Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and Carnegie Europe.
In Europe, as in most other parts of the world, democracy is retreating and autocracy is gaining. Yet Europe’s challenges are particularly noteworthy. Although it is commonly assumed that democratic backsliding starts with electoral problems, other political elements—such as the infringement of individual rights and the freedom of expression—are at the core of Europe’s democratic woes.
Staffan I. Lindberg
Staffan I. Lindberg is the director of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute and professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) index, a signature product of the V-Dem Institute based at the University of Gothenburg, examines the state of global democracy through a distinctive focus on seven different democratic types. V-Dem recently released its 2017 data and annual “Democracy Report 2018,” using over 400 detailed indicators of the particulars of democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and freedoms aggregated from ratings provided by over 3,200 scholars in 180 countries; almost fifty indices capturing components of democracy such as accountability, women’s empowerment, freedom of expression, clean elections, and so on; and five main indices of democracy (electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian democracy) to give new insights into the state of global democracy and the shape of European democracy, in particular.
V-Dem’s data show that a global wave of autocratization—a reduction in democratic qualities that can lead to the breakdown of democracy—is manifesting itself less than thirty years after communism’s collapse and democracy’s global spread generated tremendous hopes for a twenty-first century dominated by liberal democracy. The rise of authoritarianism in Honduras, Nicaragua, Russia, Venezuela, Turkey, and Ukraine, accompanied by substantial backsliding in countries like Brazil, India, Israel, and now the United States, over the past decade testifies to the erroneousness of the optimism expressed in the 1990s. Should the world be genuinely alarmed about the future of democracy in Europe?
A SOBERING GLOBAL PICTURE
The third global wave of democratization started in the mid-1970s and gained momentum across the 1980s and 1990s, peaking between 1993 and 1999. In that period, seventy countries made significant advances on V-Dem’s liberal democracy index every year, while only four to six countries backslid on an annual basis. This dominance of democratic advances over deterioration actually continued from 1978 until around 2010. Since then, a downward trend in democratic progress has become obvious, while the count of nations relapsing has increased. In 2017, the number of countries backsliding matched the count of countries making progress for the first time in forty years.
The overall level of democracy in the world from 1972 to 2017, based on V-Dem’s 2018 data, can be viewed from the perspective of two complementary metrics (see figure 1): conventional averages across countries (the left panel) or averages weighted by each country’s population size (the right panel). There are some noticeable differences, both in levels and the trends over time.
Significantly, overall levels are markedly lower when population size is taken into account, meaning that large countries are worse at delivering democracy. This also holds true for several regions of the world, including the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean. It does not hold in the former Soviet republics, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa. Africa is also the only region bucking the contemporary trend of autocratization in both measures.
This means that the gathering trend toward autocratization is much more demonstrable when population sizes are considered. The global level of democracy calculated by conventional country-averages dips slightly after 2010 but is well within confidence intervals. Using population weights, the fall is more pronounced: by this measure, the world has receded to a level of democracy last recorded some twenty-five years ago in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union’s breakup. One-third of the world’s population—2.5 billion people—lives in countries that are now part of the global autocratization trend.
Many countries have experienced major changes in their democracy scores over the last ten years (see figure 2).1 Several large and populous countries have registered substantial declines in recent years, including Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. Notably, all of these are or used to be democracies.
While there are also countries making progress on democracy, they tend to have small populations, such as Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Fiji, Sri Lanka, or Vanuatu. Nigeria is the only country with a large population that has made substantial progress in terms of liberal democracy in the last ten years.
EUROPE’S SITUATION
Democracy in Europe is in decline, even by the more conventional measure. When weighted by population, the trend is again much more apparent. By the latter measure, the level of democracy in Europe has fallen back forty years, to where it was in 1978. This decline is just as steep as the backslide seen in several other regions of the world.
Europe is often portrayed as a bastion of democracy that is more advanced than the rest of the world, perhaps with the exception of the United States and Canada. But while the average level of democracy in Europe is still the second highest in the world, it is only by a slim margin. When weighted for population size, democracy in Latin America is clearly comparable to Europe.
Another important perspective is the qualitative transition from one type of regime to another among European countries, in particular when such transitions cross the democracy-autocracy divide (see table 1).2
Europe has seen six shifts in regime classification over the past ten years. Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia lost their status as liberal democracies and transitioned downward to be electoral democracies. Several of these transitions have been drawn out over several years, but the autocratization of Poland is notably picking up speed and most of the changes in Warsaw have occurred between 2015 and 2017.
Fortuitously, only one full democratic breakdown has occurred so far. In Serbia, autocratization has gone so far that democracy is no longer upheld, even in its most limited sense of electoral only. In another instance of slow-moving developments where the government changed its nature in an incremental fashion over many years, Serbia has become an electoral authoritarian state.
Only Albania has transitioned to a better state of affairs, now qualifying as a liberal democracy.
Overall, the evidence points in the direction of democracy losing significant ground in Europe.
WHAT IS CHANGING IN EUROPE?
V-Dem’s data can also help identify which aspects of democracy are diminishing and which are holding up more strongly. The index for liberal democracy consists of the index for electoral democracy and three indices capturing more specific liberal concerns: the protection of civil liberties by the rule of law and both judicial and legislative constraints on the executive.
The index driving most of the downward trend in recent years is the measure of electoral democracy (see figure 3), which has registered the largest drop between the various indices.
Plotting the twenty-five indicators that go into V-Dem’s index of electoral democracy shows the number of countries in Europe that have significantly improved or declined on each indicator between 2007 and 2017 (see table 2).3
Notably, the indicators measuring the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information have declined significantly in many countries while improving in very few—just one country has seen improved media self-censorship and two have seen less media bias in favor of the government. In addition, indicators from the clean elections index that measure civil society’s ability to organize freely without being repressed or prevented from existing also suggest democratic backsliding.
At the same time, almost all indicators that measure purely electoral aspects in the clean elections index show improvement. In particular, the extent to which the elections are free and fair in procedural terms and the quality of the voters’ registry—two of the most fundamental indicators related to elections—record more countries improving than declining.
This gives a detailed depiction of the current trend of democratic backsliding in Europe. Some ruling elites are clearly on an undemocratic quest, but the electoral institutions that most observers think of as representative of democracy have so far been robust or even improving.
In contrast, democracies are backsliding by way of less conspicuous violations. The freedom of expression and government- and self-censorship of the media, academia, civil society organizations, and cultural institutions can be affected negatively by relatively obscure means, such as inducements, intimidations, and co-optation. Incrementally, governments are constraining autonomous actors to impair their abilities to function as pro-democratic actors, while skillfully engineering an increasing level of acceptance for such measures.On its own, each step can appear relatively inconsequential. Yet the outcomes add up and are now evident—as shown in table 2. Critically, this is weakening those liberal rights and institutions that make electoral practices consequential and effective instruments of democracy. This is a problematic development that presents a clear test for the future of democracy in Europe.
Europe is also not exceptional in this regard. As noted in the V-Dem Institute’s “Democracy Report 2018,” the exact same pattern of autocratization is found in countries across the world today. This should not be a comfort to Europe or a reason to relax. On the contrary, the undermining and weakening of media, civil society, and freedom of expression has been followed by more dramatic turns to autocracy in a diverse set of countries including Russia, Turkey, and Nicaragua—and is an uncomfortable reminder of Europe’s political tumult in the 1930s.
CONCLUSION
The level of democracy in Europe remains close to its highest level ever recorded. Albania, for example, recently transitioned into a liberal democracy. Yet, as in other parts of the globe, substantial autocratization over the last ten years may threaten the future viability of democracy in Europe. Several countries have recently backslid from liberal to electoral democracies, and authoritarian rule is increasingly recorded in others. This backsliding occurs primarily in media and civil society—non-electoral soft spots of democracy where governments can limit democratic space with less immediate scrutiny.
The subtlety and variation across different components of democracy needs to be fully understood to correctly address the challenge to democracy in Europe. Electoral institutions and practices remain robust (or are even improving). It is media freedom, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, and the rule of law that are being undermined in a significant number of countries.
These disquieting conclusions fit political scientist Nancy Bermeo’s observation that “the most blatant forms of backsliding” are disappearing while surreptitious tactics such as harassment of the opposition and subversion of horizontal accountability are on the rise: “Elected executives weaken checks on executive power one by one . . . [and] hamper the power of opposition forces to challenge executive preferences.”4
Both negative and positive trends are observed at the same time. It is important to recognize that the “democraticness” of European society is under strain. Placed in the wider sweep of time, the current situation is not yet as bad as previous moments of crisis; European democracy still scores well across most indicators compared to the 1970s. Tremulous times are nothing new. Yet recent developments most certainly give room for pause.
V-Dem’s 2017 democracy report concluded that democracy still seems relatively resilient.5 This year, the assessment is more pessimistic. Democracy is being rolled back. A trend of autocratization is evident. The starkest difference from last year is the number of very large and powerful nations that are now part of the autocratization wave, affecting billions of people and sending a very strong signal to the rest of the world.
Staffan I. Lindberg is the director of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute and professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
NOTES
1 Color codes are by regions of the world, and only countries with significant changes outside of the confidence intervals are labeled. The term “confidence intervals” is used here to denote credible regions in which the Bayesian highest posterior densities would place the equivalent of one standard deviation within. For details on the V-Dem measurement model and the calculation of the confidence intervals, see Daniel Pemstein et al., “The V-Dem Measurement Model: Latent Variable Analysis for Cross-National and Cross-Temporal Expert-Coded Data,” Varieties of Democracy Institute, University of Gothenburg, April 2018, https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/5a/23/5a231d27-8f14-4b87-9a27-1536d6a2e482/v-dem_working_paper_2018_21_3.pdf.
2 Anna Lührmann, Marcus Tannenberg, and Staffan I. Lindberg, “Regimes of the World (RoW): Opening New Avenues for the Comparative Study of Political Regimes,” Politics and Governance 6, no. 1 (2018): 60–77.
3 Orange bars indicate the number of countries that are backsliding on a particular indicator, while blue bars indicate the number of countries advancing. The indicators are ordered so that placement to the left indicates that more countries have improved than have declined, and the reverse is true for those appearing to the right in the table.
4 Nancy Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding,” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 3 (2016): 5–19.
5 Anna Lührmann et al., “Democracy at Dusk? V-Dem Annual Report 2017,” Varieties of Democracy Institute, University of Gothenburg, May 2017, https://www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/91/14/9114ff4a-357e-4296-911a-6bb57bcc6827/v-dem_annualreport2017.pdf; Valeriya Mechkova, Anna Lührmann, and Staffan I. Lindberg, “How Much Backsliding?,” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 4 (2017): 162–69.
