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Nations in Transit 2018 Contents Confronting Illiberalism NATIONS IN TRANSIT 2018 CONTENTS Nations in Transit 2018: Confronting Illiberalism 1 The Challenge at the Core of Europe 5 Smearing the Messenger 8 The Twilight of Putinism 10 Nations in Transit 2018 Map 12 Informal Power: The Men behind the Curtains 14 Macedonia: Freeing the Captured State 15 Uzbekistan: The First, Meager, Shoots of Spring 17 Overview of Score Changes 19 Nations in Transit 2018 Scores 20 Methodology 22 Category and Democracy Scores 23 Democracy Score History by Region 24 RESEArch AND EDITORIAL TEAM ON THE COVER Nate Schenkkan is project director of Nations in Transit. Senior re- Serbians protest against Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić’s searcher Zselyke Csaky and research associate Nathan Stormont presidential win in Belgrade in April 2017. contributed to this booklet. MILOS MISKOV/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images 2 Nations in Transit 2018 Confronting Illiberalism by Nate Schenkkan Contempt for independent institutions and open discussion has become entrenched from Central Europe to Eurasia. Time is running out for the EU and the United States to confront the antidemocratic backlash. In 2017, illiberalism established itself as the new nor- “Illiberalism” is not a derogatory code word for “pol- mal in the region that stretches from Central Europe icies we disagree with.” It is an ideological stance through Eurasia. In Central Europe, governments that rejects the necessity of independent institu- that disdain independent institutions and seek to tions as checks on the government and dismisses fuse the ruling party with the state are no longer the idea of legitimate disagreement in the public exceptional. The bulldozing of the judiciary in Poland sphere. exposed how few safeguards there are, even in the heart of the European Union, against a determined The version of illiberalism taking root in Central Eu- government that disregards political and constitu- rope is distinct from the violent authoritarianism that tional norms. dominates the Eurasian half of the coverage area. In this new illiberal environment, citizens will be able to But illiberalism has spread far beyond Poland or go to protests, establish NGOs, publish news articles, Hungary. Members of government and presidents or make critical remarks on social media without in almost every country in the Nations in Transit risking physical assaults or long prison terms. But coverage area now regularly smear nongovernmental such activities will expose them to intrusive govern- organizations (NGOs) and independent media out- ment inspections and vociferous attacks in state- lets as agents that serve foreign interests and harm owned and government-aligned media, and even the nation. Politicians’ attempts to delegitimize all discrimination in employment in countries where critical voices presage legislative efforts to eliminate ties to the ruling party are becoming an economic checks and balances. www.freedomhouse.org 1 Nations in Transit 2018: Confronting Illiberalism necessity. What Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hun- with minimal accountability. If illiberalism continues gary famously hailed in 2014 as “illiberal democracy” to thrive within the EU, it will bolster illiberal leaders is essentially a return to the political practices of and parties in the countries seeking to attain mem- goulash communism, in which individual persecution bership in the next wave of accession, and over time may be relatively rare, but independent institutions it will remake the EU in its own image. Developments outside the Nations in Transit area individual persecution may be relative- continued to bolster this European trend in 2017. The U.S. administration’s ongoing denigration of ly rare, but independent institutions are the media has reinforced the sense in Europe nonexistent and the party and the state that politicians no longer need to treat journalists with respect. “Fake news” has become a common are one shorthand among leaders who want to dismiss unfavorable reporting. The National Front’s Marine Le Pen failed to win the presidency in France, but she are nonexistent and the party and the state are one. advanced to the second round. A new government The entrenchment of this system matters because it in Austria included the far-right Freedom Party, and comes from within the EU and thrives on the bloc’s the far-right Alternative für Deutschland made major contradictions. Its leading proponent is a European gains in the German parliamentary elections. Such prime minister, Orbán, whose Fidesz party remains parties have helped to normalize apocalyptic “civiliza- in good standing in the largest political grouping in tional” rhetoric, and formerly center-right politicians the European Parliament. Its defenders enjoy the now portray themselves as defending “Christian privileges of EU and NATO membership, including Europe” against Muslim migrants. Russian proxies hundreds of millions of dollars in cohesion funds, and propaganda outlets have exploited the situation, NATIONS IN TRANSIt 2018: CHANGES IN DEMOCRACY SCORE Number of changes in DS per year; average changes weighted and unweighted for population. Nineteen out of 29 countries recorded declines in their Democracy Scores, the most ever in the history of the survey. 2 Freedom House AVERAGE NIT SCOREs 2008-2018 The 29-country averages of all 7 categories in the survey have declined since 2008. stoking grievances and encouraging division within is near the threshold for leaving the category, having and among democratic countries. suffered the largest category score declines in the history of the survey. This year, 19 of the 29 countries Faced with this rising tide, American and European in the report recorded declines in their Democracy policymakers have a choice: They can resign them- Scores—more than in any previous edition of Na- selves to the new normal, or they can confront and tions in Transit. overcome illiberalism by exposing the corruption, The fragile postwar status quo established in the inequality, and hypocrisy that sustains it in power. Balkans is also fraying. Dysfunctional institution- al arrangements in Bosnia have left it unable to Backsliding across the region move forward on joining the EU. Aleksandar Vučić The consolidation of democratic institutions in the in Serbia and Milo Đukanović in Montenegro have postcommunist countries of Europe that occurred captured their respective states, turning them into in the late 1990s and early 2000s has stalled, and mechanisms for distributing patronage that in turn in important cases, been reversed. The Democra- strengthen their parties’ grip on power. Meanwhile, cy Score of every country in Central Europe has the nationalist incitement that drove the Yugoslav declined since 2008, with the biggest setbacks conflicts has again become the preferred vocabulary in the media, the judiciary, and the functioning of of politicians. Democracy improved across the Bal- national democratic institutions like parliaments and kans from 2005 to 2010, but it is now in decline, with presidencies. Hungary and Bulgaria are no longer the sole exception of Macedonia after its promising considered “Consolidated Democracies,” and Poland change in government. www.freedomhouse.org 3 Nations in Transit 2018: Confronting Illiberalism CHANGE IN DEMOCRACY SCORE AVERAGES BY SUBREGION Normalized subregional Democracy Scores Every subregion in the survey is in decline. The authoritarian regimes of Eurasia are hardly With these deepening setbacks in the European successful. The economic crises of 2008 and 2014, half of the Nations in Transit region, it is no surprise and the collapse of the global commodity boom, left that the countries in Eurasia most at risk of falling the region with anemic growth and added another into authoritarianism—Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, decade to the post-Soviet legacy of poor investment Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan—are also moving in a neg- in physical infrastructure and human capital. While ative direction. The window for fundamental reforms the death of President Islam Karimov in late 2016 may not have closed in Ukraine, but it has narrowed has resulted in a small opening in Uzbekistan, the considerably amid political resistance to anticorrup- new leadership appears hesitant to fully dismantle tion reforms and a series of attacks on civil society the system it inherited after decades of rule centered and the media. For the first time since the 2014 on a single person. revolution, Ukraine’s Democracy Score declined this year. In the other four countries, informal leaders Standing up for what counts operating outside of or on the edges of accountable The paradox of the new normal is that illiberal lead- institutions increasingly dominate their underdevel- ers benefit from their states’ membership in supra- oped political systems. national bodies, even as they rail against outside meddling. The security umbrella of NATO gives pop- In Eurasia’s entrenched autocracies—Belarus, ulist politicians the room to uproot state institutions, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, stoke bitter societal divisions, and goad neighboring Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan—personalized regimes states without fear of armed conflict or direct inter- keep a tight grip on power, suppressing political vention by a hostile power. The EU’s funds can be competition and targeting independent activists and used to sustain patronage networks without risking journalists who dare to speak out. financial collapse. In the long term, the United States and the EU will have to confront
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