It also said in its ‘Nations in Transit 2024’ report that Poland’s ability to recover from its apparent backsliding on democracy “will be crucial for the future of the wider region”.
Increasing levels of war and repression in the region, Freedom House wrote, have severely undermined the assumption that all the countries are moving towards the same goal of peaceful democratic consolidation.
The democracy ratings of many of the autocracies such as Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan, the report says, have now fallen to such a low that it is almost impossible for them to go any lower.
As they trundle further down the autocratic path, the broader region, the report continues, is reordering itself into blocs.
“Moscow’s ongoing attempt to destroy Ukraine and the Azerbaijani regime’s inhumane conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrated once again the deadly consequences of autocracy’s expansion,” it says.
“These and other events in recent years have accelerated a geopolitical reordering in the region, with countries sorting themselves into two opposing blocs: those committed to a liberal, democratic order and those that violently reject it.”
The autocratic regimes now support one another, Freedom House writes, in evading sanctions, crushing democracy and “blunting accountability for military aggression and other violations of international law.”
This has, apparently, created a regional order that suits the needs of the autocrats, and one the democratic bloc has failed to find an adequate response to.
The hardening of autocracy, the report also warns, means that hybrid regimes, those such as Hungary that are positioned between the democratic and autocratic blocs, risk being sucked further away from democracy.
Of the 11 states classified by Freedom House as hybrid, five “experienced an overall decline in their Democracy Scores” while only Ukraine managed to move in the opposite direction.
But Poland could provide a rare ray of light.
Although the reports says Poland has seen “the largest drop among semi-consolidated democracies” in its Democracy Score, which fell from 6.0 points in 2005 to 4.43 in 2024, the new government could reverse the trend in Poland, and help reinvigorate democracy as a whole.
“If European democracies are to maintain their positive momentum amid the wider region’s geopolitical reordering, the success of Poland’s democracy will be crucial,” says the report.
“Such a large and influential country could provide important leadership, and its experience could set new, exemplary standards for the reversal of democratic backsliding elsewhere.”