Win some, lose some: while many countries are moving toward more democratic systems, others cling to authoritarian rule.

The growth of democracy is a constant struggle to wrest power from the hands of self-preserving elites. In recent years, the elites have been booted out of their privileged spots in many places--Venezuela, Bolivia, Ukraine, Georgia, the Philippines--all were peaceful changes.

A 2005 report published by Freedom House shows that nonviolent "people power" movements are the strongest force in most successful transitions to democracy. The report focusses on 67 countries where dictatorships have fallen since 1972. It found that peaceful civic resistance including boycotts, mass protests, blockades, strikes, and civil disobedience were the best weapons against authoritarian rulers. But, the study also points out that transitions from authoritarian rule do not always lead to freedom. "When tyrannies or closed systems fall, democracy is far from the only outcome. Among the 67 countries we examined, pre-transition none were free, 31 were partly free, and 36 were not free. Today, 35 are free, 23 are partly free, and nine are not free."

The report comments on the scale of civic resistance that surprised the world in Ukraine in November-December 2004.

That's when millions of citizens filled the streets (below) in their quest for free and fair elections. Their struggle became known as the Orange Revolution but Freedom House says it was only one current example of numerous such revolutions around the world including the Philippines in 1986; Chile and Poland, in 1988; Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia in 1989; the Baltic States in 1991; South Africa in 1994; Serbia and Peru in 2000; and Georgia in 2003.

The organization says that in the last three decades, the number of free states, which ensure a broad array of political rights and civil liberties, has grown from 43 to 88. On the other hand, the number of not-free states, where repression is widespread, dropped from 69 to 49 in the same period.

Obviously, there are still dozens of countries where the elites cling tenaciously to power--China, Burma, and Saudi Arabia, for example, are among the many countries that human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch express concern about.

In its 2005 report, Amnesty International said that while some areas of China have made progress, there still are "serious and widespread human rights violations perpetrated across the country. Tens of thousands of people continued to be detained or imprisoned in violation of their fundamental human rights and were at high risk of torture or ill-treatment. Thousands of people were sentenced to death or executed, many after unfair trials. Public protests increased against forcible evictions and land requisition without adequate compensation. China continued to use the global 'war on terrorism' to justify its crackdown on the Uighur community in Xinjiang. Freedom of expression and religion continued to be severely restricted in Tibet and other Tibetan areas of China."

Brad Adams, director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, in a 2004 address, described the situation in Burma as appalling: the country "is the textbook example of a police state. Government informants and spies are omnipresent. Average Burmese people are afraid to speak to foreigners except on most superficial of manners for fear of being hauled in later for questioning or worse. There is no freedom of speech, assembly, or association."

In March 2005, Freedom House released its annual list of the world's most repressive regimes at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The report, The Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2005, provides details of the dire human rights situations in 18 countries including: Belarus, Burma (Myanmar), China, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

Foreign Policy Magazine and the Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, conducted a global ranking of weak and failing states. The July/August 2005 issue of Foreign Policy explains that, "Using 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators, we ranked 60 states in order of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict ... The resulting index provides a profile of the new world disorder of the 21st century and demonstrates that the problem of weak and failing states is far more serious than generally thought. About two billion people live in insecure states, with varying degrees of vulnerability to widespread civil conflict."

The article cites the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a failed state plagued for years "by armed conflict, famine, disease outbreaks, and refugee flows."

Other cases may be less dramatic, but no less destructive with underlying hostilities, "episodic fighting, drug mafias, or warlords dominating large swaths of territory (as in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Somalia)."

Foreign Policy says weak states extend from Moscow to Mexico City. Its study with the Fund for Freedom places Ivory Coast as the area "most vulnerable to disintegration," among the 60 states included in the index, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, and Haiti.

The study found that one the top warning signs that a state is failing is uneven development, "suggesting that inequality within states--and not merely poverty--increases instability." Another top indicator is criminalization or loss of legitimacy of the state, "which occurs when state institutions are regarded as corrupt, illegal, or ineffective."

Some suggest the United States belongs in the column of undemocratic nations.

American activist Ralph Nader is among those criticizing the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney administration for its move away from democratic practices. In an article published by CommonDreams.org in April 2005, Mr. Nader wrote: "In Cicero's words, 'freedom is participation in power.' Bush-Cheney have made sure fewer people are participating, while poverty, hunger, consumer debt, non-living wages, the uninsured, environmental damage, electoral shenanigans, tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy, militarization of both foreign policy and federal budgets keep worsening."

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights includes six members who are on the Freedom House 2005 list of the world's most repressive regimes--China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, roughly 11 percent of the 53-member body. Find out why these countries are included in a Commission that monitors and condemns human rights violations.

2. Some argue that governments don't mean anything anymore in a world dominated by 100 multinational corporations. In the context of corporate power and influence, watch and discuss the film, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price." Investigate other large corporations and discuss how their influence undermines democracy?

FACT FILE

Freedom House, which was founded more than 60 years ago in the U.S., has vigorously opposed tyranny including dictatorships in Latin America, apartheid in South Africa, and Soviet Communism and domination of Eastern and Central Europe, and religiously-based totalitarian regimes including Sudan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

According to a 2005 Harris Interactive poll, 90 percent of Americans think big business has too much power and influence in Washington D.C.; 78 percent felt public opinion had too little power.

According to Freedom House by 2006, 89 countries were designated as free (46 percent), 58 were partly free (30 percent), and 45 countries (24 percent) were not free; in terms of population, nearly three billion people (46 percent) live in free countries, 1.16 billion (18 percent) live in partly free countries, and 2.33 billion (36 percent) live in countries that are not free.

The World Bank found that, within five years, half of all countries emerging from civil unrest fall back into conflict in a cycle of collapse (Haiti and Liberia for example).

Websites

Foreign Policy--http://www. ForeignPolicy.com

Freedom House Map of Freedom 2005--http://www. freedomhouse.org/template. cfm?page=15&year=2005

Fund for Peace--http:// www.fundforpeace.org

openDemocracy--http:// www.opendemocracy.net/ about/index.jsp

DEFINITION

Here's how Democracy Watch defines democracy: A democracy is a society in which all adults have easily accessible, meaningful, and effective ways:

* to participate in the decision-making processes of every organization that makes decisions or takes actions that affect them, and;

* to hold other individuals, and those in these organizations who are responsible for making decisions and taking actions, fully accountable if their decisions or actions violate fundamental human rights, or are dishonest, unethical, unfair, secretive, inefficient, unrepresentative, unresponsive or irresponsible; so that all organizations in the society are citizen-owned, citizen-controlled, and citizen-driven, and all individuals and organizations are held accountable for wrongdoing.