Democracy in Latin America weakens again

王烜

February 14th 2023

• The score for Latin America and the Caribbean in EIU's Democracy Index weakened for a seventh consecutive year in 2022. However, the region remains the third most democratic (after Western Europe and North America), and its score (5.79 out of 10) is higher than the world average of 5.29.
• The region's relatively high score is supported by its three full democracies: Uruguay, Costa Rica and Chile. Amid the lifting of covid-19 restrictions, Uruguay rose by two places in the global ranking, to 11th, becoming the most democratic country in the Americas. Meanwhile, Chile regained its status as a full democracy, again reflecting the end of pandemic-era limitations.
• However, most countries in the region saw their scores slip, with the sharpest declines in Haiti and El Salvador. For Haiti, this reflects a deteriorating political situation—exemplified and aggravated by the assassination of the president, Jovenel Moïse, in July 2021—which is now playing out as a violent collapse of the state. The lower score also reflects the authorities' failure to hold scheduled elections amid the chaos. For El Salvador, the decline can be attributed to draconian anti-crime policies being pursued by the president, Nayib Bukele, and his use of authoritarian tactics to suppress dissent and undermine the autonomy of democratic institutions.
• Democratic backsliding in the region has caused the number of hybrid and authoritarian regimes to rise, from seven in 2019 to 12 this year. Peru is now classified as a hybrid regime following a failed coup by the former president, Pedro Castillo (2021-22). Mexico was downgraded from flawed democracy to hybrid regime in 2021, and its score dropped again in 2022, reflecting the expansion of the military's role into formerly civilian areas under the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as the weakening of electoral institutions and a record number of journalist murders in 2022 (with a high level of impunity, indicating weak rule of law).
• Looking ahead, democracy in Latin America is facing numerous challenges. Among the most significant is the threat of populism in a region disillusioned with politics and, increasingly, with democracy itself. The appeal of populists in the region poses a threat to the quality of policymaking and to democratic institutions (which populists typically bypass), and risks morphing into authoritarianism (as has occurred recently in El Salvador).
• Drug-trafficking is another challenge to democracy. A surge in drug-trafficking is causing crime rates to rise in much of the region; Ecuador, Jamaica and Honduras have all declared states of emergency to address the issue. There is a risk that governments follow Mr Bukele's lead in responding to a spike in violent crime with extreme policies, severely curtailing human rights in the process.