Freedom in the World 2023: Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy

Speaker: Yana Gorokhovskaia (Freedom House)

Date: 20 September 2023

Speaker Session Summary

For fifty years, Freedom House has published its assessment of the state of democracy around the world. Freedom House categorizes countries and territories in to three groups based off a point system: 1) free, 2) partly free, and 3) not free. Dr. Gorokhovskaia mentioned that 2022 saw a continuation of a 17-year democratic slide; however, there were several bright spots for democracy around the world. For instance, during 2022 only one more country that became less democratic (35) than countries became more democratic (34). In comparison, during 2021, 35 more countries became more autocratic (60) than countries that became more democratic (25). Several factors that lessened the global strength of democracies during 2022 included a rash of military coups. For example, Burkina Faso experienced several military coups itself that resulted in the suspension of its constitution. Burkina Faso had the largest point decrease of 23-points during 2022. Columbia experienced the largest growth in democratic strength, increasing by 6 points. Columbia’s increase was due to more fair and competitive political elections than it had experienced in recent years. Individual country reports go into greater detail.

Reviewing the findings based on region, she reported that the Middle East and Eurasia were the most oppressive regions, with only Israel categorized as free. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is one reason why Eurasia does not have a free state. While the current democratic slide is nearly two decades old, the world is still more democratic than when the Freedom House began assessing the state of global democracy 50 years ago. Also, global democracy has historically ebbed and flowed. Only 12 of the 195 countries have never moved out of the non-free category for any period. Dr. Gorokhovskaia commented that a Ukrainian victory, global support for human rights defenders, and protecting freedom of expression in countries will help lead to the further democratization of the world. 

Speaker Session Recording

Briefing Materials:

2023 Report on World Freedom: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2023/marking-50-years

2023 Report on Transnational Repression: https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression

Biography: Yana Gorokhovskaia is the Research Director for Strategy and Design at Freedom House where she oversees Freedom in the World, Transnational Repression, and Media and Democracy projects. Yana has a PhD in Political Science from the University of British Columbia and before joining Freedom House in 2021, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. Her research and analyses have been published in Politico, Foreign Affairs, Just Security, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Post-Soviet Affairs, Russian Politics, Democratization, Russian Analytical Digest, Moscow Times, Ponars Policy Memos, EurasiaNet, and International Migration.