WUNRN
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.
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…….