On 25 April, the Geneva Graduate Institute co-organised with the Albert Hirschman Democracy Centre the event “Global Governance in a context of democratic backsliding” with Staffan Lindberg. The Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg and Director of the Varieties of Democracy project presented key takeaways from the Democracy Report 2024 and discussed its implications for democracies worldwide.
By coincidence, the event took place on the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos o revolución de los claveles) in Portugal, which opened a new period of transitions away from authoritarian rule in Southern Europe, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. The current trend is in the opposite direction.
2024 is a decisive year for democracies around the world, with 64 countries (not all of them democracies) planning to hold elections. Covering 202 countries from 1789 to 2003, the Democracy Report 2024 “Democracy Winning and Losing at the Ballot” shows that the level of democracy worldwide in 2023 has declined to 1985-levels. When it comes to the number of countries, the world is almost evenly divided between 91 democracies and 88 autocracies. When it comes however to the world’s population, 71% of people live in autocracies. The general assessment in the report is that autocratisation continuous to be dominant around the world, but the novelties it highlights come from a more finely grained approach
Professor Lindberg explained that V-Dem has become the largest democracy database ever compiled. It classifies systems into closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies. In 2024, a fifth category was added to the database: a grey zone dedicated to countries whose confidence intervals overlap to make their classification more uncertain.
Yanina Welp, Research Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy moderated the conversation on organisational and methodological aspects of the data collection, as well as on the political implications of the results.
In order to organise the data collection, V-Dem has researchers at its Institute, as well as 33 regional managers, 134 country coordinators, and 4200 country experts born in 185 countries. The data is open-access and widely used.
On the political impacts of their findings, Professor Lindberg explained that consequences of democratic backsliding can be felt across all sectors, from human rights to peace to economic development and climate policies bringing in general a quite pessimistic picture. Professor Lindberg made a special warning about the future of democracy in the United States, saying quite alarmingly that he feels that democracy will not survive in the country.
Yanina Welp announced the recent publication of a new podcast series entitled Who is voting in 2024? with episodes focusing on Panama, Iceland, Mexico, and South Africa, amongst others.
