According to Freedom House, the U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, democracy is under siege.
Its most recent annual report on Freedom in the World concluded that “democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny.” The NGO’s authors and analysts say global freedom has declined for 15 consecutive years and “the long democratic recession is deepening.”
Put some of the blame on the COVID-19 pandemic, which legitimated intrusions on personal liberty — historically, pandemics expand state power — and distracted governments that might otherwise criticize authoritarian overreach, as well as the technologies that made it possible. Those rationalizations don’t explain, however, the appeal of authoritarianism and illiberalism to democratic societies. What accounts for this attraction and how worried should we be about this surge?