Countries at the Crossroads 2007

‘Countries at the Crossroads’ is an annual survey of democratic governance in 30 strategically important countries worldwide, brought out by Freedom House. This year’s survey covers Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Honduras, Iran, Laos, Libya, Mauritania, Mozambique, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Russia, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and Zambia.

The polities evaluated represent a range of systems: traditional or constitutional monarchies; one-party states or outright dictatorships; oil-rich “petrostates;” and states where democratic reforms have stalled. The detailed governance assessment in survey looks at four core areas of democratic governance: anti-corruption and transparency; rule of law; civil liberties; and accountability and public voice. Some of the main findings are:

• Mauritania advanced the most in the past two years due to elections, improvements in civil liberties, and anticorruption efforts.
• Libya showed improvements since 2005 in the areas of rule of law and anticorruption
• Bhutan marked broad improvements as a result of the country’s gradual transition to a more open society.
• Thailand showed a major decline due to last year’s coup
• Eritrea continued its descent into extremely repressive governance.
• Russia declined in accountability and public voice as a result of a restrictive NGO law and increased government control of the media.

A highlight of the report is the finding that China performs poorly on all of the indicators and is among the weakest in the study in accountability and public voice, which include free and fair electoral laws and elections; effective and accountable government; civic engagement and civic monitoring; and media independence

The report makes several recommendations to Chinese authorities to enhance the prospects for meaningful reforms. They include:

• easing registration requirement for civil society groups and allowing such groups to play a more active role in helping society meeting the challenges of environmental degradation, corruption, and social welfare
• improving the transparency of information and the efficiency of its dissemination
• cessation of comprehensive official monitoring of the Internet
• allowing the petition and court systems to play a larger role in combating corruption at local levels, with freer rein also given to the media, NGOs, and citizens to expose cases of corruption
• adequate protection for petitioners, litigants, and whistle-blowers from corrupt officials who threaten them