In a new report, Investing in Freedom: Democracy Support in the U.S. Budget, Freedom House examines the President’s FY 2014 request for democracy and human rights activities and urges Congress to fully fund the international affairs budget to support the achievement of strategic U.S. foreign policy goals.
Issues:
Civil Society, Democratic Governance, Internet Freedom, U.S. Foreign Policy, United Nations
Regions:
Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Middle East and North Africa, Americas
“Democratizing the media” is a common refrain in Latin America these days. It can be heard in weekly presidential “cadenas” and verbose diatribes during the biannual hearings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). While the phrase may suggest a process that would lift restrictions on media and increase citizen access, it has been invoked to support policies that do the opposite, becoming a favorite slogan of the region’s least democratic leaders, chief among them Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa.
Authoritarian regimes around the world are banding together to bypass international institutions and human rights norms that conflict with their abusive practices. Unlike the alliances of the Cold War era, these partnerships have few ideological underpinnings other than a shared rejection of democracy and the rule of law. But such cooperation has offered aid and solidarity to dictators under pressure, and created a marketplace through which repressive regimes can meet their technology, security, and energy needs without the headaches of transparency and accountability. And if the seven-year decline in global freedom recorded by Freedom House is any indication, authoritarianism is, sadly, a growth industry.
Freedom House works with local organizations to assess the state of freedom of assembly and association in the country and to promote greater awareness of the need to respect these freedoms.
