Democracy declined across Asia in 2021
But there are ways it can revive
IT WAS, IN much of Asia, not a good year for fair, free and open societies. “Democratic recession”, the phrase used by some analysts, does not really do service, especially in so motley a region. It is too clinical, eliding the profound human impact of lurches towards authoritarianism. It is also too optimistic: “recession” has embedded in it the notion of a bottom in the cycle, with inevitable recovery. In much of Asia, that is a heroic assumption.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Down and to the right”
From the December 18th 2021 edition
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