Freedom House 2021 Report Observes Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule

Freedom has declined globally for the 16th straight year, as authoritarian rule has expanded, Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/) observes in its 2021 report issued earlier this month: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule | Freedom House. Only one in five humans live in free countries, while nearly twice as many live in countries that are not free, with the rest living in countries that are in between, according to the report, unlike 16 years before when nearly half of the world’s population was free. Freedom House finds authoritarians having developed new ways to seize power and that certain authoritarian States, namely the Russian Federation and Communist China, work to present a different model than one of equality, liberty and representative government. It also observes that such illiberal states work together against freedom. Freedom house noted not only the rigging of elections by authoritarians, because they recognize the legitimacy elections confer, but a decade-high number of coups, but also. Meanwhile, freedom is undermined even in free States by populist and corrupt officials who use their power to undermine equality, liberty and representative government. Cited particularly in Freedom House’s report were the rigging of elections by the Marxist Sandinista regime of Nicaragua and by ex-Soviet intelligence officer Vladimir Putin in Russia, the elimination of freedom by Communist China in Hong Kong, return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan after the disastrous Trump-Biden withdrawal of American and allied forces, and the coups in Burma, Sudan and several other African States. The report cited progress in some countries, pro-freedom resistance movements in unfree States, and the validation of liberty in the large numbers of refugees seeking freedom, although it also observed the hostility of even free States towards refugees seeking asylum. Freedom House provides a number of suggestions to counter the rise of authoritarianism. An increase in freedom has a benefit to the world of increasing peace and prosperity.