Democracy means that the government is established in accordance with the decision made by the majority of people. A democratic government is made up of legislative, executive, and judicial branches. If the government is successful in protecting people’s safety and safeguarding their rights and freedom (including property rights and the freedom of trade and commerce), it enables improving livelihoods and achieving national development.
However, as John Locke said, the majority’s decisions aren’t everyone’s decision, therefore the society will never be able to function as a single entity. It means that a majority’s decision may bring about positive outcomes within a specific period of time, but may yield negative results in certain circumstances. This creates a need to continuously change and improve the way things are done, which can be seen from history.
These advancing and reversing outcomes and trends are collectively referred to as ‘waves of democracy’, which is explained by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington. If you look at the bigger picture, the mankind is currently descending from the third wave of democracy. And, this descent is being referred to as ‘democratic reversing or backsliding’.
The first wave of democracy started in the United States in 1826 -1920 when suffrage was granted to men. Following this, suffrage was also granted in nearly 30 countries including France, England, and Canada. The wave was then weakened and democratic reversal started when Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922.
The second wave of democracy started after the World War II, and 20 countries became a democracy. This wave grew weaker and stayed static, as suffrage was not granted to women. Despite becoming a democracy during the first wave, Switzerland didn’t grant women the right to vote until 1971.
The third wave of democracy started with Portugal’s Carnation Revolution in 1974 and continued in Latin America and East Asia in the 1980s. This wave also includes expansion of democracy in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The backsliding began following the United States declaring a war on terrorism after the September 11 attacks. Some experts argue that Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Poland, and many other countries are going through their own wave of democracy, following the 2008 Great Recession.
THIRD WAVE
At the start of new century, the third wave of democracy encompassed 110 countries. Starting from the 1990s, dozens of countries have transitioned to democracy from authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Stanford Professor Larry Diamond argues that this transition began stopping in 2006, resulting in democratic backsliding in some countries. This backsliding has manifested in four ways:
- Military coups
- Deliberate election fraud
- Political parties weakening democratic institutions after obtaining power in an election
- Executive branch imposing control on legislative and judicial branches.
Regardless of which form it takes, the democratic backsliding is directly or indirectly restricting people’s right to unite with each other, hold peaceful demonstrations, and voice their concerns. Non-governmental organizations are the pillar of civil society, but there have been attempts to eliminate them by changing relevant laws and restricting their funding and operations. It has happened in 60 countries in the last four years.
Russia and China are two of the countries that have most effectively restricted NGO activities in a post-communist society. Lately this pressure is also being realized in Mongolia.
Russia approved “Amendments to Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation regarding the Regulation of the Activities of Non-profit Organisations Performing the Functions of a Foreign Agent” in 2012, which has effectively limited the funding and operations of NGOs. This law requires any NGO that receives funding from abroad and conducts political activities to be registered as ‘foreign agent’. And, if you are a foreign agent, you will be under the microscope of the Justice Ministry. The law received widespread criticism internationally and was taken to the constitutional law by a citizen named Vladimir Lukin in 2013. However, the appeal didn’t result in any change.
It is surprising that Hungary and Poland, both of which are viewed as stable democracies that have transitioned in 1990, have started the democratic backsliding.
With their Prime Minister Orbán declaring that the George Soros Open Society Foundation is a public enemy, Hungary is closing down NGOs. The foundation was deemed to have imposed threats to national security, because they called for immigrants to go to Europe. By making amendments to their law on higher education in April 2016, Hungary forced the Central European University, which was funded by the Soros Foundation out of the country (Szuleka.M 2018). In 2017, they passed a law on transparency of organizations with foreign support and required all organizations with funding of over 23,000 euros to state the complete list of their donors and financiers in any and all publications, including websites (Jensen. M 2017). The failure to meet this requirement would result in a penalty of 2,900 euros, and repeated failures would lead to closing down the organization. Hungary is branding it as a measure to fight against money laundering and funding of terrorism.
Poland established a new agency called the National Center for Development of Civil Society in September 2017. This institution, which reports directly to the Prime Minister, started managing the allocation of funding for NGOs made available by the government and international organizations. As a result, Poland’s ruling political party has started treating NGOs differently. It has meant bad treatment if the NGO was a liberal one, and better treatment for conservative NGOs (Cianetti, Dawson, Hanley 2018). The NGOs who didn’t support the government started receiving heavy blows, and so did the NGOs who had support from abroad. The situation has been even worse for the NGOs who stand for social minorities, including watch dog organizations that speak out against racism and support immigration (Szuleka.M 2018). Also, the Polish government is using media to damage the reputation of these NGOs and has been investigating the representatives of the NGOs that criticised the government. In October 2016, they seized computers and documents that belong to people who organized a demonstration opposing a law that banned abortion.
IN MONGOLIA
In 1997, Mongolia passed its first ever law on NGOs. As of June 2019, Mongolia has a total of 21,040 registered NGOs, but less than half – approx. 8,500 organizations – are currently active. However, these organizations mainly focus on non-profit activities for the public good, and the government views that only a small number of organizations work on protecting the public interests and providing oversight on government activities, which are what NGOs focus more on in developed countries.
P. Sainzorig, Head of Legal Policy department at the Ministry of Justice, stated in his presentation that NGOs are working in all sectors, such as environment, social care, education, politics, and religion, in Mongolia, and the majority are operating in a mining-related sector. Using this context, he called for a law on non-profit organizations and said that the government needs to provide funding support because Mongolian NGOs are operating as if they were a representative office of an international organization. Former Deputy Minister B. Enkhbayar said that 80 per cent of Mongolian NGOs receive funding from abroad, and – if these NGOs are not overseen – it heightens the risk of money laundering and funding terrorism. Using this reasoning, the government appears to be starting to get NGOs in order.
Our young democracy hasn’t matured yet in terms of NGOs and their overall funding and structure. If foreign funding is stopped at this point, it will lead to a complete stop in NGO activities. Mongolia doesn’t have the culture of philanthropy yet.
Many countries are going through democratic backsliding. If we look at what’s been happening in Mongolia for the last 2-3 years, we can also say that we’re moving backwards on democracy. Now is the time for the media and the civil society to united under a shared voice.
2019.06.19
Trans. by B.Amar