"The percentage of countries designated as free has failed to increase for nearly a decade and suggests that these trends may be contributing to a developing freedom stagnation," writes Freedom House director of research Arch Puddington in an essay released with the rankings.
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Regimes across the world are closing down nongovernmental organizations, newspapers and other groups that advocate for human rights. And, I would add, what is most striking is that these efforts are not being met with enormous criticism. Democracy proponents are on the defensive in many places.
What explains this paradox—of freedom's retreat, even with a U.S. administration vociferous in promoting democracy? Some part of the explanation lies in the global antipathy to the U.S. president. "We have all been hurt by the association with the Bush administration," Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the Egyptian activist, told me last month. "Bush's arrogance has turned people off the idea of democracy," says Larry Diamond, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.
But he goes on: "There's a lot more to it than that. We need to face up to the fact that in many developing countries democracy is not working very well."
Diamond points to several countries where elections have been followed by governmental paralysis, corruption and ethnic warfare. The poster child for this decline has to be Nigeria, a country often lauded for its democracy.
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What we really need to face (but elected officials will never do so), is the fact that war is ludicrous. Moreover, virtually every "intervention" or war effort in which the U.S. participates or instigates is not primarily predicated on our notion that democracy would better enhance the lives of the affected countries' citizens. While democracy may be beneficial in most of these situations, there are scores of other countries in the world where the same rational exists. However, in many countries, the other objectives (economic, strategic or otherwise) are insufficient to motivate intervention.
So, let's be glad about America's motivation (one of many) for trying to spread democracy in individual places, but let's keep it real by recognizing there are other paramount considerations at play.
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