More inequality, less freedom
The authors view unsatisfactory socio-economic development to be one of the greatest impediments to development towards democracy and economic sustainability. According to the study, there is massive poverty and a high level of social inequality in 72 developing and transformation countries. In 22 of them, including India, South Africa and Venezuela, there has even been a decline in the level of socio-economic development in the last ten years. During the same time period, the proportion of countries achieving a moderate to good level of social inclusion sank from a third to a quarter.
More and more people are living not only in less equal, but also in more repressive environments. At the present time, 3.3 billion people are governed autocratically (4.2 billion democratically), which is the highest number since the study began. Of the 129 countries studied, the BTI classifies 58 as autocracies (2016: 55) and 71 as democracies (2016: 74). But it is not so much the slight increase in the number of autocracies that is worrying. More problematic is the fact that civil rights are being curtailed and the rule of law undermined in an increasing number of democracies as well. Former beacons of democratization such as Brazil, Poland and Turkey are among the countries that have fallen the most in the Transformation Index.
Only Burkina Faso and Sri Lanka were making significant progress towards democracy during the period under review. By contrast, there are a total of 13 countries, including Mozambique, Turkey and Yemen, where the political situation has become significantly worse. Five of these 13 countries no longer meet minimum standards for democracy: Bangladesh, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Uganda, where democracy has been gradually undermined for years, are under autocratic rule. It was often shortcomings in the quality of elections that tipped the balance.