WUNRN

http://www.wunrn.com

 

Multiple report themes relate to women, women’s freedom, women’s human rights, women and social justice.

 

Nations in Transit – Democracy on the Defensive in Europe & Eurasia

 

Direct Link to Full 32-Page 2015 Freedom House Report:

https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FH_NIT2015_06.06.15_FINAL.pdf

 

Report Overview: https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit-2015/democracy-defensive-europe-and-eurasia#.VYsZL3kw_mJ

 

By Sylvana Habdank-Ko³aczkowska, Project Director, Nations in Transit

 

As the war in Ukraine makes clear, democratization in post-Communist Europe and Eurasia is not simply slow or stalled. It is actively opposed by forces that are determined to see it fail.

The findings of the 2015 edition of Nations in Transit (NIT), Freedom House’s annual study of democratic governance in 29 countries from Central Europe to Central Asia, underscore the growing audacity of democracy’s foes in Eurasia, where 4 in 5 people live under authoritarian rule.

 

When the first edition of NIT was published 20 years ago, only three countries—Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—were considered “consolidated authoritarian regimes.” Since 2000, however, the number of such regimes has more than doubled, and Eurasia’s average democracy score has fallen from 5.4 to 6.03 on a 7-point scale. Over the last 10 years in particular, authoritarian leaders who paid lip service to democratic reform have systematized their repressive tactics and largely abandoned any pretense of inclusive politics.

In 2014, Russia earned its largest ratings decline in a decade, reflecting the fact that Moscow’s aggression abroad is closely tied to the Putin regime’s domestic struggle for survival. As it sought to destabilize the new democratic government in Ukraine, the Kremlin stepped up its suppression of dissent at home, targeting online media, opposition figures, and civil society groups with legal bans on “extremism,” trumped-up criminal charges, and other restrictions.

https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FH_NIT_Graphics_NoCountriesRegimeType_400px.jpg

In Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev’s regime brought a new intensity to its multi-year crackdown on activists and journalists who threatened to expose official corruption and other abuses. Many were jailed during the year on fabricated charges like hooliganism or possession of weapons and drugs. Even as it shut down U.S.-funded media and democracy organizations, Azerbaijan chaired the executive body of the Council of Europe from May to November, and it is currently hosting the 2015 European Games. The country’s NIT score has fallen nearly every year for the past decade, leaving it with a ranking worse than Russia, Tajikistan, or Belarus in Nations in Transit 2015

 

Democracy’s most brazen opponents are far less powerful in Central and Southeastern Europe, yet there are cases in which parties and personalities that openly flout democratic norms have risen to the top. Media freedom, national democratic governance, and the fairness of the electoral process in Hungary have declined more rapidly in the five years since Viktor Orbán and his right-leaning Fidesz party came to power than in any other NIT country during the same period. Only Russia’s judicial independence rating has seen as much deterioration as Hungary’s over the last five years.

While Orbán stands out in the region for the virtual political monopoly he has achieved, he is not alone in his disdain for democratic standards. The European Union and its aspiring member states have no shortage of individuals and groups that, through the exercise of political and economic pressure, or by exploiting public anxieties and prejudices, contrive to keep or obtain power at the expense of democratic values and institutions in their countries. 

Perhaps the most alarming fact about these trends in Eurasia and Europe is that they are not unrelated. Menaced by nearby Russian military activity and aggressive propaganda aimed at their Russian-speaking national minorities, countries on the EU’s eastern fringes risk overreacting in ways that threaten free speech and other civil liberties. Across Europe, Russian money and inspiration emboldens xenophobic and illiberal political movements that could break European unity on critical human rights and foreign policy matters. Wealthy Eurasian autocracies more broadly—through their energy firms, lobbyists, investments, and offshore accounts—have a corrupting influence on European politicians and businessmen, who help to dampen criticism of such regimes’ abuses, forestall any punitive action, and weaken institutional safeguards in their own countries…….