#democratic-backsliding

#democratic-backsliding

The so-called democratic backsliding isn't the future: it's the present. This is what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has laid bare in its annual report, released this month. The compilation of human rights violations confirms that we're witnessing the collapse of the global order that was meticulously crafted over decades, amid the apparent passivity of many of its defenders. The new executive director of HRW, 52-year-old Philippe Bolopion,

The planet is experiencing a veritable global wave of autocratisation, according to the report 25 Years of Autocratisation: Democracy Trumped?, by the Swedish University of Gothenburg's V-DEM Institute. The world now has 88 democracies compared to 91 autocracies, which is a radical change from last year, according to the report. Liberal democracies have become the least common type of regime globally. Almost three out of four people, or 72% of humanity, now live in autocracies, the report points out.

Europe's leaders cannot stop talking about democracy. President Emmanuel Macron says he wants to kickstart a democratic resurgence, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, has warned of an axis of autocratic states targeting liberal democracy in Europe. Having promised to fight for what she calls European values, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has just announced a new democracy shield and a Centre for Democratic Resilience to prevent foreign interference and deal with external threats.

Svetlana Alexievich, the Belarusian author who writes in Russian and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015, lives in the same Berlin apartment, with its high ceilings and spacious rooms, where EL PAIS visited her four years ago. The author of Voices from Chernobyl, Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, and Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets continues to write by hand.

In fact, since 1997 the Center for Systemic Peace has maintained a 21-point scale that takes into account various political variables elections, the role of the military, economic inequality, political violence and so on in order to describe where countries stand on the scale between democracy and autocracy. On the autocracy end, at -10, are the countries that you would expect: North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, obvious autocracies all. At +10 are the apparent democracies: Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada and, until recently, the United States.

Georgia's leadership has for months been agitating against the EU, Germany and the German ambassador personally,

They are joined by Hardy Merriman, an expert on the history and practice of civil resistance, to discuss what kinds of coördinated actions-protests, boycotts, "buycotts," strikes, and other nonviolent approaches-are most effective in a fight against democratic backsliding. "Acts of non-coöperation are very powerful," Merriman, the former president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, says. "Non-coöperation is very much about numbers. You don't necessarily need people doing things that are high-risk. You just need large numbers of people doing them."

For millions of Ugandans under 40, Yoweri Museveni is the only president they have ever known. And that's unlikely to change soon, as he prepares for yet another campaign after the Ugandan electoral commission confirmed the final list of candidates for the upcoming presidential election next February. Museveni, 81, first came to power in 1986 following an armed rebellion that deposed Milton Obote, and has become one of the world's longest-serving leaders.

The General Assembly is the primary deliberative body of the United Nations and, in effect, of global diplomacy. This year's session will comprise delegations from all 193 UN member states, which all have equal representation on a "one state, one vote" basis. Unlike other UN bodies, such as the Security Council, this means all members have the same power when it comes to voting on resolutions. It is also the only forum where all member states are represented.

The first time I ate a was in 2003, and after one bite of that soupy, oversize dumpling, I became obsessed with the food of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. I started making pilgrimages to Georgian restaurants wherever I could find them, snarfing down cheese-stuffed breads and garlic chicken, pickled walnuts and those delicious khinkali. I often imagined what the food would taste like in its motherland, but for 20 years I was too busy and broke to trek to the small, mountainous nation.

Guineas military rulers have suspended the country's three main opposition parties, including that of former President Alpha Conde, in the run-up to a constitutional referendum next month. The order on Saturday prevents Conde's Rally of the Guinean People, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, led by former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, and the Party of Renewal and Progress from engaging in any political activities for 90 days with immediate effect.