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PARIS – Emergency measures to reduce the coronavirus pandemic affected democratic freedoms around the world last year, with setbacks in the West even as some Asian countries made progress, according to a report on Wednesday.
The annual “Democracy Index” published by The Economist Intelligence Unit found an erosion of personal rights in almost 70 percent of the 167 countries analyzed.
France and Portugal, in particular, were demoted to the rank of “flawed democracies”, in the case of France due to blockades and other restrictions on movement.
That lowered its aggregate ranking on topics including civil liberties, political participation and government operation.
The fall of Portugal partly reflected fewer parliamentary debates during the health crisis to function as a check on the prime minister’s powers.
Overall, “the pandemic resulted in the large-scale withdrawal of civil liberties and fueled an existing trend of intolerance and censorship of dissenting opinion,” according to the report.
Although in many cases citizens approved or at least agreed to drastic social distancing rules intended to limit Covid deaths, incoherent policies and their enforcement undermined trust in government and democratic norms for many.
“The withdrawal of civil liberties, attacks on freedom of expression, and failures in democratic accountability that occurred as a result of the pandemic are serious matters,” the report concluded.
In Asia, however, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were promoted to “full” democracies of “flawed”, as governments “reacted decisively” to the crisis and “maintained the confidence of their populations.”
Although Asia still lags broadly behind in terms of democratic freedoms, “the new coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift in the global balance of power from West to East,” the study said.
The United States also maintained its status as a “flawed democracy,” with more active voter participation in government offset by deep distrust of dysfunctional political parties and government institutions.
“Social cohesion has collapsed and consensus has evaporated on fundamental issues … Joe Biden, faces a great challenge to unite a country that is deeply divided on fundamental values,” he said.
Elsewhere, Mali was demoted to an “authoritarian regime” after a military coup last August, after years of fighting a jihadist insurgency with the help of French troops.
North Africa and the Middle East were once again the worst regional performers, despite promises to improve government transparency since the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010.
“More than a third of the world’s population lives under an authoritarian regime, and a large part is in China,” the study found.
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