Thread by @FlorianHenig

»In 2021, the number of countries moving away from democracy once again exceeded the number of countries moving toward it by a big margin.«
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https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1496858853190819846

»Another depressing facet of the #FreedomHouseReport is that the number of countries experiencing improvements in their democratic institutions has fallen radically of late.«
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»In 2006, the first year of the democratic recession, 56 countries moved toward greater freedom and democracy. Last year, only 25 did.«
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»In the United States and much of Western Europe, the current crisis is mostly about what political scientists call “democratic backsliding”: the weakening of democratic institutions in countries that have long enjoyed them.«
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»But around the globe, the most striking aspect of the current moment may be “democratic despondency”: The number of countries aspiring to democracy has fallen to a record low.«
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» for many citizens of the world’s poorest countries, the dream of living the good life is no longer synonymous with the dream of living in a democratic country.«
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»Many democracies are now rife with acrid divisions and face domestic challenges to their stability«

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»All of this helps explain why the world’s dictators are taking off their masks. […] And those dictators, like Vladimir Putin, who also have significant military might at their disposal are now trying to remake the world order in their image.«
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»And so the coming decades won’t just pit democracies against autocracies in key territorial battlegrounds like Ukraine. They will also pit the defenders of democracy against those who blatantly reject the supposed decadence of popular self-determination in the sphere of ideas.«