International democracy-support organisations have spent two decades grappling with unfavourable trends and various types and degrees of democratic regression. In doing so, they have neglected to design strategies for responding to moments of democratic opportunity.
Even though the general state of global democracy has worsened, there have been some positive democratic breakthroughs or reversals of authoritarian trends. In several countries, a period of democratic erosion has given way to more positive democratic dynamics. The nature of such reversals varies enormously across countries, and not all of them lead to a sustained process of democratisation. Yet, their occurrence is significant and merits closer attention.
Case studies
Our report delves into six case studies in which moments of democratic opportunity have opened in recent years:
- In Brazil, the 2022 presidential election saw Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva take power from his illiberal predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. (Oliver Stuenkel)
- In Montenegro, the 2020 parliamentary election was won by a reform-oriented opposition coalition after years of autocratic drift. (Biljana Spasovska)
- In Guatemala, presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo won the 2023 election and then defeated an attempted coup. (Marielos Chang)
- In Thailand, the 2023 general election saw the military-backed government suffer defeat to the pro-democracy opposition party. (Janjira Sombatpoonsiri)
- In Zambia, the opposition candidate won the 2021 presidential election to oust the autocratising incumbent. (Nic Cheeseman)
- In Bangladesh, protests in 2024 dislodged an increasingly autocratic regime from power. (Naomi Hossain)
In all six cases, moments of democratic opportunity opened up through elections – except in Bangladesh, where protests ousted the president some months after a regime-controlled election. These episodes show differing degrees of autocratic reversal, and not all are cases of deep, successful democratic turnaround. After their breakthrough moment, most of the countries continued on a broadly democratic path, although with still imperfect re-democratisation. In Montenegro and Zambia, the new governments have stalled on democratic reforms. The outcome of the regime shift is still uncertain in Bangladesh, while Thailand has suffered the most pronounced slide back towards autocracy and, for now, looks like a decidedly missed democratic opportunity.
Each case study examines the domestic factors that generated positive change and then assesses how far EU policies assisted these factors. The case studies do not provide general overviews of EU policies towards the countries but rather analyse how well EU interventions functioned just before, during, and after these crunch points. We assume change is driven mainly by domestic factors, and our focus on the EU does not imply the contrary; we look at how far external influences helped or hindered domestic drivers.
This article is an excerpt from the introduction of the report, written by Richard Youngs, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and co-founder of the European Democracy Hub.
The European Democracy Hub is a joint initiative of the European Partnership for Democracy and Carnegie Europe.
Photo credit: ©REUTERS/Adriano Machado, 2023
