India ‘one of the worst autocratisers’: V-Dem report on democracy

Noting that almost all components of democracy were getting worse in more countries than they were getting better, the report singled out freedom of expression, clean elections, and freedom of association/civil society as the three worst affected components in autocratising countries

March 11, 2024 08:25 pm | Updated 09:18 pm IST - NEW DELHI

India, which was downgraded to the status of an “electoral autocracy” in 2018, has declined even further on multiple metrics to emerge as “one of the worst autocratizers”, according to the ‘Democracy Report 2024’ released by the Gothenburg-based V-Dem Institute that tracks democratic freedoms worldwide.

The V-Dem report categorises countries into four regime types based on their score in the Liberal Democratic Index (LDI): Liberal Democracy, Electoral Democracy, Electoral Autocracy, and Closed Autocracy. Their annual report, which maps each country on a matrix of whether they are turning more democratic (‘democratising’) or more autocratic (‘autocratising’), stated that in 2023, 42 countries (home to 35% of the world’s population) were undergoing autocratisation. “India, with 18% of the world’s population, accounts for about half of the population living in autocratising countries,” the report said. Democratisation was taking place only in 18 countries, accounting for just 400 million people, or 5% of the world’s population.

According to the report, 71% of the world’s population — 5.7 billion people — live in autocracies, an increase from 48% ten years ago. The level of democracy enjoyed by the “average person in the world is down to 1985-levels”, the report said, with the sharpest decline occurring in Eastern Europe, and South and Central Asia.

1. India’s democratic values have eroded significantly: V­Dem

2. Democracy in India, a gift and a warning

3. 85 per cent Indians support rule by a strong leader or military says Pew survey: Data

4. India’s democracy, diminished and declining

5. The democratic backsliding of India

Noting that almost all components of democracy were getting worse in more countries than they were getting better, the report singled out freedom of expression, clean elections, and freedom of association/civil society as the three worst affected components of democracy in autocratising countries. The autonomy of the electoral management bodies “is weakening substantially in 22 of the 42 autocratising countries,” the report said.

South and Central Asia regressed significantly, with the level of “liberal democracy” enjoyed by the average Indian now “down to levels last seen in 1975….when Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India”. As per the V-Dem classification, a liberal democracy is one where, in addition to the requirements of electoral democracy such as regular free and fair elections, mechanisms for judicial independence and constraints on executive overreach are robust, alongside rigorous protection of civil liberties and equality before law. In an electoral autocracy — the category India falls into — multiparty elections coexist with insufficient levels of basic requisites such as freedom of expression and free and fair elections.

Noting that India’s “autocratisation process has been well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, as well as attacks on civil society,” the report detailed how the “anti-pluralist” BJP government has “used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics”.

“The Modi-led government also continues to suppress the freedom of religion rights. Intimidation of political opponents and people protesting government policies, as well as silencing of dissent in academia are now prevalent,” the report noted, adding that the only liberal democracy in the whole of South and Central Asia was Bhutan.

In a separate section on the 60 countries that go to the polls in 2024, the report observed that more than half of these (31) were in periods of democratic decline. Noting that elections on autocratising countries are “critical events” that can “either trigger democratisation, enable autocratisation, or aid stabilisation of autocratic regimes”, the report stated that “a majority” of elections in 2024 would be in highly contested spaces, making 2024 a critical year for the “future of democracy in the world”.

As for social stability, not mentioned in the "democracy" index: China compares more favourably than the US....

I think India can find her own footing in the world in the coming decade.   Yes, there are many challenges, but thats like every other country in the world, we all have our own challenges.

India and China were long past their economically world-leading days when modern liberal democracy was born.

We know India isn't a 'liberal' democracy; and neither is China, yet the latter has eradicated poverty at the fastest rate in history by introducing a mixed socialist command (public)/market (private) economy, NOT a democracy (unlike India which has struggled to escape mass poverty)

See above. The CCP has more support in China than Dem or Repub government in the US.

Quote:


When were either of them a world leader?

Both have reaped great benefits from democracy and liberalisation. Both still have a long way to go, just to copy what has been done elsewhere. The rapid improvement in China (until the latest round of reforms put the handbrake on) reflects the rapid transition. Just more evidence of democracy and liberalisation as the cause of wealth.

'Liberal' is a relative term, just as 'wealthy' is also relative. Only those who seek to deceive try to turn it into a binary.

Or else.

The cultural advances they made.

The exact number of deaths by famine (in the "Great Leap Forward" is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 15 million to 55 million people

Quote:


Making cultural advances proves they lead the world economically?

Are you just parroting what you have been told to parrot?

Are you trying to argue that the great leap forward was the only time the CCP killed millions of Chinese people?

Or am I being to generous in assuming this is part of a cogent argument?

When was the last time the US government killed 100 million of its own citizens?

Quote:


So when you say that China compares "more favourably" than the US on social stability, you are comparing the CCP's reign with the American civil war, plus a few others?

thegreatdivide wrote on Aug 4^th, 2024 at 1:00pm:


So China is only more stable "today"? Are you trying to exclude the CCP killing 100 million Chinese citizens from your claim about stability?

"in China there was very high satisfaction with the central government."

And you'd better believe it or the party will wonder about your mental health ......

freediver wrote on Aug 4^th, 2024 at 1:03pm:


Yes, with Harvard polls showing the CCP has more support than the US government.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-...

9 July 2020 — The survey team found that compared to public opinion patterns in the U.S., in China there was very high satisfaction with the central governement.

Meanwhile  Trump is saying the US will collapse into chaos if he loses. 

Which country looks more stable? 

thegreatdivide wrote on Aug 5^th, 2024 at 12:10pm:


You know that social stability normally refers to more than one day, right?

freediver wrote on Aug 5^th, 2024 at 1:21pm:


Low IQ; we are looking at chaos in the US according to Trump himself, if he loses; whereas Chinese citizens are comparatively satisfied with their government...reinforced  as they observe the increasing hyperpartisan chaos in the US.   

thegreatdivide wrote on Aug 5^th, 2024 at 5:04pm:


So the CCP has killed about 100 million of it's own citizens, but it is more "socially stable" than the US because of Trump's "chaos"?

Normally I would point out the the apparent chaos around democratic elections is far better than a civil war every time there is a change of government,

but the CCP has managed to kill more people than any other government in world history, and only a part of that was in the process of gaining power. They killed far more people by trying to help them.

Perhaps you think China is more stable because the government manages to get people to die quietly?

thegreatdivide wrote on Aug 6^th, 2024 at 12:39pm:


This is about neither mismanagement, nor dysfunction.

You compared their stability.

Are you incapable of following through on one thought for more than a sentence?

Is that what a CCP brainwashing education produces?

A highly trained parrot?

Mao mismanaged collective farming 60 years ago; and the US is suffering from neoliberal free market dysfunction NOW

Correct: stability being an enabler of prosperous national development.

Quote:


The CCP killed about 100 million of it's own citizens through "mismanagement".

Not just with the Great Chinese Famine. It has been steadily slaughtering Chinese people since it was first formed. It is still doing it. It's mismanagement of the covid outbreak is just the latest in a long string the CCP's deadly incompetence.

How many Americans has the US government killed?

Would you describe China's rapid transition from starving it's citizens to death in the millions by trying to feed them all equally to a free market economy as a period of stability?

thegreatdivide wrote on Aug 8^th, 2024 at 12:47pm:


How many Chinese people do you think the CCP has killed?

So you think this rapid change is actually stability, but I am confusing stability with instability?

Isn't one of the reasons the current leader put the handbrake on the economy because the change was too fast?

You said social stability.

On political instability, the US has kept the same system of government for centuries, with the civil war being the only real challenge to it.

On the other hand, the CCP has only been in power since after WWII, and has had to kill about 100 million of its own citizens to gain and hold on to that power.

There have been no fundamental changes to US economic policy in the time that China has transitioned from starvation communism to market liberalisation.

thegreatdivide wrote on Aug 9^th, 2024 at 12:30pm:


How many fall into the "apart from" excuse for the CCP's mass murder of its own citizens?

You are yet to explain how going from starvation communism to a liberal market driving a massive increase in wealth counts as stability. Either political or social. It is one of the most rapid changes in the last century.

Is it just because you equate wealth with stability and want to credit it to stability so you don't have to acknowledge that the Chinese Communist Party has turned into those capitalist ideologues that it spent a better part of a century trying to slaughter?

It is because the CCP is decoupled from reality by believing its own hubris.

It has seen the success of capitalism but fears the economic freedom granted to citizens may lead to demands for other types of freedom, human rights, or the expansion of democracy.

The CCP does not need the US government to decouple from the global economy.

  It is more than capable of stuffing things up on its own. Like when the lights literally went out because the CCP put a trade embargo on Australian coal. Didn't think that one through, did they?

One thing you are right about, most of the CCP's victims were not deliberately targeted. Thought tens of millions were, merely for having the wrong opinion. Most of the people the CCP killed, they were actually trying to help. Like the Great Chinese Famine. The only thing more dangerous than a Nazi trying to exterminate you is a communist trying to help you.