Feb 18, 2020 3 min read

When it comes to democracy across the world, it’s a good news/bad news scenario, according to Michael J. Abramowitz, president of the democracy-promoting organization Freedom House.

First the bad news: Democracy is backsliding in many places, including the United States. Abramowitz also believes that “things are likely to get worse in the short term.”

But, by the same token, “The world is a better place than it was for most of the 20th century,” Abramowitz said.

Abramowitz delivered his diagnosis on the state of democracy around the world Monday morning at Washington & Jefferson College as part of the college’s second annual Symposium on Democracy. The morning keynote speaker at the daylong event, Abramowitz pointed out that democracy is in a fragile state in many parts of the world, pointing to the autocracies of Xi Jinping in China and Vladimir Putin in Russia, and the dysfunction and authoritarianism that have overtaken countries as varied as Venezuela, Hungary and Turkey.

“There is no bigger issue in our time,” Abramowitz said. “For now, the global trajectory is in the wrong direction.”

He said the fundamental tenets of democracy, such as the freedom of association and the freedom of religion, “are natural desires of the human heart.” He also argued that the United States needs to defend democratic norms and institutions around the world, and doing so “is very much in our national interest.”

“It is up to us, the champions of freedom, to turn the tide,” said Abramowitz, a onetime reporter with The Washington Post. “We reject the view that America must retreat from the world.”

Based in Washington, D.C., Freedom House is a nonpartisan organization founded at the cusp of World War II that advocates for human rights and democracy. It is perhaps best known for the annual scores it gives to countries based on their adherence to civil liberties and political rights, and Abramowitz said the latest report would be coming out soon. While he wouldn’t reveal how the new rankings would stack up, he said the countries deemed the healthiest would most likely be Scandinavian nations like Norway or Sweden.

Last year, Freedom House said democracy in the United States was “robust by global standards,” but warned it was threatened by executive and legislative dysfunction, attempts to manipulate the electoral system and pressure on judicial independence and the rule of law. While still giving the United States a relatively good grade, France, Germany and Britain ranked higher.

The Symposium on Democracy is the brainchild of W&J president John C. Knapp, who, in his introduction of Abramowitz, stated that democracies are “undergoing a terrific test.”

Later on Monday, Knapp interviewed Nathan Law, a young activist in Hong Kong’s democracy movement who is also a student at Yale. The evening’s keynote speaker was Serge Schmemann, a member of The New York Times’ editorial board, who discussed press freedom.

Other talks were held throughout the day on topics as diverse as religious nationalism, nuclear technology and democracy in Latin America.