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| Author: | Peter Beinart, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy |
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Vol. 169, No. 21
Time Magazine
In 1999 Nigerians did something remarkable: they elected a President. After 16 years of military rule and four decades of political and economic failure, Africa’s most populous country held a free election. “Globally, things are going democratically,” a Lagos slum dweller told the New York Times. “We want to join the globe.”
It was a good time to get on board. The percentage of democracies in the world had doubled since the 1970s, to more than 60%. Many of the remaining autocracies — pariah states like North Korea, Burma and Iran — seemed to be living on borrowed time. In ideological terms, as Francis Fukuyama famously declared, history was ending — and Nigeria didn’t want to be left behind.
That was then. But when Nigerians went to the polls again last month, democracy lost. In an orgy of ballot-box stuffing and violence, punctuated by an attempted truck bombing of the electoral-commission headquarters, the ruling party won what some observers thought was the most fraudulent election ever in Nigeria — which is saying something. Once again, Nigeria is catching a wave. From Bangladesh to Thailand to Russia, political freedom is in retreat. In a book due out this fall, Hoover Institution political scientist Larry Diamond notes that “we have entered a period of global democratic recession.”
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
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Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
