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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Brian today. We all know this will be a very consequential election year in the United States, but as it turns out, more than 60 countries will hold national elections this year, according to The Washington Post, affecting some four billion people.

We're talking about major countries in the regions like India, South Africa, the UK, Taiwan, and, of course, the United States, and yet democracy itself is considered at stake in many of these votes. The Post's global affairs columnist, Ishaan Tharoor, who writes their newsletter called Today's WorldView, wrote that this year could be the greatest rolling spectacle of democracy in human history. Ishaan, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Ishaan Tharoor: Thanks. Good to be with you, Brigid.

Brigid Bergin: Is it unusual for so many countries to hold elections in the same year?

Ishaan Tharoor: It's unusual, in the sense that, the sheer scale of it, as well as the fact that the countries we're talking about are some of the world's biggest and most populous nations, and 8 of the 10 most populous countries in the world are having national elections this year. I think, based on some studies, we won't see a year like this, at least per current trends until say 2048. This is a big year in elections.

Brigid Bergin: Wow.

Ishaan Tharoor: There, of course, is a profound irony that, even as more adults are voting than ever before, or have the capacity to vote than ever before, we feel this kind of pervasive sense that democracy is more vulnerable than it's been in a long time.

Brigid Bergin: Well, listeners, we want your help to report this global story. If you are an immigrant from, or have any ties to any country holding elections in 2024, call and give us a headline according to you. What kind of election is coming up? What do you think is at stake? Is it democracy itself, or something else? The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

If you have ties to India or South Africa or the UK or Taiwan or anywhere else, 212-433-WNYC. Again, the number is 433-9692 for Ishaan Tharoor, the Today's WorldView columnist for The Washington Post. Ishaan, you described a bit of a paradox, and you started to touch on it just a moment ago in which you describe this rolling spectacle of democracy, but one in which democracy itself is also at stake. The fact that so many countries are actually holding elections, does that indicate democracy might, in fact, be thriving around the world?

Ishaan Tharoor: I don't think so. I think it's a host of political sciences will tell you that elections are great, and it's important and essential for democracies for there to be elections, but the quality of your democracy is not shaped entirely just by the ability to vote. What we're seeing across the world, and you have various think tanks and political organizations that study this, point out that we are in-- The Freedom House says, we are in the 17th year of a democratic recession, in terms of the quality of democracy around the world.

Another major think tank in Sweden has said that, democracies on the whole have declined in their quality for six consecutive years. What are they talking about? They're talking not just about the freedom and fairness behind elections, but they're talking about the participatory nature of the democracy, the ways in which the rule of law functions in those societies, the ability for civil society to have a stake in the political process, the freedom of the press, and so on, and so forth.

There's a whole list of these indicators that comprise what our sense of a free and functioning and healthy liberal democracy should look like. We are, in what the political scientist, Larry Diamond has described, as a real recession in democracy. One that, perhaps, has started, or can be traced back to say the global financial crisis at the end of the previous decade. We're seeing its long tail now in various forms.

Yes, as you said, of course, lots of people are voting. This will be the biggest year in terms of ballots cast. If you look at India alone, the world's most populous country, there's very high voter participation there, and their election will be a couple of months'-long process. The Indonesian election in February will be the single greatest day in voting around the world, and so on and so forth, in terms of the spectacle of this, but what's happening in these societies?

You're seeing illiberal leaders, illiberal governments really take hold in a certain way, and fundamentally change the tenor of a lot of democracies around the world, and that has analysts in various parts of the world very concerned.

Brigid Bergin: Can you talk a little bit more about what are some of the main characteristics of these illiberal democracies, and how does that fit into this period of recent history that you call the third wave of democracy?

Ishaan Tharoor: Sure. The third wave of democracy, which is characterized by the political scientist, Samuel Huntington, was what we saw at the end of the previous century when various countries that were under dictatorships, or other forms of authoritarianism won their freedoms, built democracies through the '80s and '90s, and then through the end of the Cold War.

That wave surged through the end of the Cold War into the century, but we are seeing now a steady retreat. I think it's useful at this point just to, if we're talking about the elections happening this year, think about it in terms of four buckets. One bucket say is the Western countries, United States, the liberal democracies in Europe. That's one bucket where we tend to take for granted the health and robustness of those democratic societies.

Then, another bucket, of course, would be completely authoritarian states, say Russia or Iran, where there will be elections as well this year, where we don't have any pretensions about the democratic nature of those elections being held this year. Another bucket would be electoral autocracies where there is an election, where there is a nominal opposition allowed to participate in the election, but the outcome is completely set in stone. It's not fair.

I think you could say, you could put a country like Tunisia in that, you could put a country like Bangladesh at this point in that, and I think that's a concerning block of countries are in that category. The biggest and most important category is this last one, which is countries that have robust, free elections, have opposition parties, but are currently drifting in a way under illiberal, perhaps nationalist, majoritarian governments that are steadily moving these countries out of, what we would classify as truly free liberal democracies, and toward that camp of electoral autocracies.

We can think about what's happened in Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, or Turkey under President Erdoğan, and apply that to what is starting to happen in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and a growing group of other countries also fit that bill. That bucket is the biggest bucket, and we're going to see that, perhaps, in Mexico, where there are elections this year, Indonesia, where there's election next month, and these kinds of illiberal democracies that are drifting towards electoral autocracies, that's becoming the zeitgeist of our age.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to Rudolph in Stony Brook, Long Island, who I think if we continue talking about in terms of buckets, I think has a geographic, or regional bucket that he feels like is potentially being ignored, in terms of elections across the country. Rudolph, thanks for calling WNYC.

Rudolph: Thank you so much for taking my call. I wanted to talk about Nigeria. We had an election February of last year, and it was a very disputed election. It was fraudulent. We had a candidate who had a lot of allegations against him here in America. Basically, he took control of the country, controlled the military, the judiciary, and forced himself on the nation. He had less than 37% of the votes, and there were so many crises during the election, and the international community didn't raise any voice.

Even the FBI, initially, said they would release the information on him on the allegations against him in America, the cases he had, but at the end, they did not do it in time, and the court system, everything was so horrible. That's the pattern in Africa, and as long as the international community close their eyes about these things, it's going to continue, and it's going to get worse. People have basically lost hope in the democratic process in Nigeria. That is the major, most populous country in Africa, and that pattern continues.

Brigid Bergin: Rudolph, thank you so much for that call. Ishaan, I'd love to give you an opportunity to respond to Rudolph, because I think one of the incredible issues that he highlights here is, the fact that if we're not paying attention to these elections around the world, it enables people to-- It weakens them in some respects.

Ishaan Tharoor: Yes. I think without having to necessarily put my own verdict on what happened in Nigeria, which, of course, as Rudolph said was a highly contested, controversial election, he's absolutely right that western governments in particular have not really extended as critical an eye to the democratic functioning of governments in Africa, as perhaps they should.

You think about, say, one of the most beloved governments in Africa, as far as Washington, and say, the UK are concerned is Rwanda. That's essentially a one-party dictatorship, and he's absolutely right. Also, that parallel to these trends of electoral autocracy deepening, or illiberal democracies becoming the mainstream in our global conversation, is a real sense among young people in various parts of the world that democracy has not delivered as it should, that it's not worth valorizing the way it has been, that democracies don't necessarily deal with corruption.

They don't necessarily deliver the services they need. They don't necessarily give them the lives that they hope for, and so there is a pessimism and cynicism about democratic politics that a whole slate of opinion poll is also revealing in various parts of the world.

Brigid Bergin: Wow. If you're just joining us, I'm Brigid Bergen from the WNYC newsroom filling in for Brian. We're talking about some of these 60, yes, 60 elections taking place around the world this year. We're joined by The Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor, and if you're an immigrant from, or have ties to any country holding elections in 2024, of course outside of the United States, call and give us a headline according to you. Again, that number is 212-433-WNYC.

That's 212-433-9692. We're interested in reporting the story, and getting your take on what the election in your country means. You can call or text. Again, it's 212-433-9692. Ishaan, I want to talk about some other big elections in other parts of the world. Let's talk a little bit about what's going on in Europe, where you mentioned Britain, Germany, Austria, and Portugal, all have big elections. You start the Europe section by writing that, a similar sense of crisis as with Trumpism in the United States is roiling European politics. Europe has its own Donald Trumps?

Ishaan Tharoor: Well, indeed, we've seen, I think this has been, for the last half a decade, the perennial story about European democracy, is this the steady march of the far right, once completely fringe, ultra-nationalists, even latent neo-Nazi or neo-fascist political movements, steadily working their way into the political mainstream of European politics, where they had been kept out for so many decades.

You saw that recently in last year's Dutch election, where the first-place party is a profoundly far right anti-immigrant, essentially, racist political faction that came in first. You will probably see the far right win power, or enter as a junior partner in the next Portuguese election. Certainly, in the next Austrian election that's also happening this year, but the biggest thing to watch is, of course, the European Union, it has its own continental parliament.

Those parliamentary elections across Europe will be held later this year. In those elections, we may see a really-- Years ago, just half a decade ago, or even a decade ago would've been unthinkable. We may see the far right emerge as one of the biggest blocks in the European Parliament, and that would be a real shock to the system, especially, a shock to the EU, which, of course, it's a complicated block, but it really functions on a very liberal understanding of what the European project ought to be.

If the far right assembles a real critical mass in the European Parliament, that's going to completely, perhaps, reset what the European Union as a whole, and as an institution may represent.

Brigid Bergin: Just on the other side of this, you talk about in Britain where the Conservative Party, which is in power, is actually floundering, and maybe facing an imminent electoral defeat to the Labour Party, and that's obviously the opposite of the trend that we've been talking about in the rest of Europe. [crosstalk] Why is that an exception?

Ishaan Tharoor: It's one of the very curious ironies of our moment. Of course, the UK really kicked things off. Kicked off a political age in 2016 with the referendum for Brexit. The Conservative Party after that referendum, surprisingly succeeded, has twisted itself in knots to deliver this exit from the EU. It now seems to be after over a decade in power, and now, is really in its last gasps.

It seems quite clear that the next election in the UK would probably deliver a Labour government led by this relatively moderate leader Keir Starmer. You would see in the UK, the restoration of a conventional, traditional social democratic party in the European sense, while on the other side of the channel in Europe, you're seeing a much more radical and nationalist takeover in various places.

Brigid Bergin: The contrast is so interesting. Let's go to Sedu in Manhattan. Sedu, thanks for calling WNYC.

Sedu: Hello. How are you, Brigid, and your guest? I can't wait, by the way, to read your article. I wanted to talk about the election, the upcoming election in Senegal in, I believe, late February. The current government, the current regime is actually doing everything possible on us to eliminate the main opposition leader, who's actually in jail right now, because they know he wants to implement some changes that would help the youth, specifically, to have some hope, to restore hope, that would allow them to stay in Senegal, instead of going and die in the Mediterranean Sea, or trying to come to the US via the Mexican border.

That's why the current regime, because they don't really care about the well-being of the population, they only care about their own privileges, because they know, should he win, he would change the country. Because Senegal now, they have oil and a lot of natural gas. I believe if they have a government that actually caress about the population, if they manage their natural resources well, in the next 10, 15 years, I believe, Senegal would be in a different economic landscape.

That's why the current regime is doing everything possible to really just to prevent the main opposition leader, who's widely supported by the youth to even run, despite winning two, I would say victories in the court, because the courts have ruled in his favor twice, but the government is still refusing to actually validate his candidacy.

Brigid Bergin: Sedu, thank you so much for your call, and for sharing your perspective on the elections in Senegal. Any reaction?

Ishaan Tharoor: Yes, absolutely. I regret not having much in my article on the Senegalese election. Senegal, really it's viewed in the West and in Western capitals of Paris and Washington as the bulwark of stability in West Africa, and you've seen in the region, in amongst Senegal's neighborhood, a wave of coups against, in some cases elected governments, in other cases, in other coup governments.

Senegal throughout this, has been the sensible, stable partner, but it has its own profound problems, and there are deep concerns that the contagion of the coup politics taking over the region, could infiltrate there. I think Senegalese democracy is something that, or at least Senegalese stability is something that Western governments have taken for granted for a long time, but this election is worth watching for precisely the reasons the caller outlined.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to another caller. We've got Sai in North Brunswick. Sai, welcome to WNYC.

Sai: Thank you. Thank you for listening to my opinion. Are you able to hear me?

Brigid Bergin: Yes, we can hear you. I understand you want to talk about the election in India.

Sai: That's correct. I think the opinion that someone was expressing that is trending from a liberal democracy to an autocracy, I think it's just too much of painting the whole country into one color, because it's whoever has written that article, would have followed the recent state elections in the last six or seven months, they would have known several other opposition parties have won state election, which is not the BJP, which is run by Modi.

I come from Hyderabad, where the state of Telangana, we had elections and the National Party, BJP, had no say whatsoever, and is the major opposition party, Congress, which won the election there. If someone just says that, "Oh, this BJP is going to rule the country forever, or going to take an autocracy," I think they probably have never traveled to that country, or don't understand the politics of this land. I'm more than happy to explain further, but I don't know if I have that much time to explain all the details.

Brigid Bergin: Sai, [crosstalk] I appreciate your call. I want to give you Ishaan an opportunity to respond, since I know that he's done a great deal of reporting on these elections around the world. We talked some about the elections in India, but we didn't go as deep as we could have about all the different elections that are going on there. Ishaan, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to Sai.

Ishaan Tharoor: I'm smiling here because I'm Indian. I don't report on India, because my father happens to be an opposition politician. I'm fully aware of the vibrant and valuable nature of Indian democracy. I did not say India is an electoral autocracy. I think what is clear, though, in the national context, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has built up an edifice of power that is fundamentally changing the political calculations that define Indian politics.

We have seen the erosion of press freedoms under his watch. We have seen a sense that, at least, when it comes to the national elections, his party has a whole set of unfair advantages when it comes to the political landscape. It also should be very clear that he is a deeply popular figure. He's winning elections on his popularity. No, I did not at all intend to say that India is an electoral autocracy, but it is certainly drifting away from the pluralist ethos that was part of its founding in 1947.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you for your response, Ishaan. I want to try and touch on a few more countries that have elections going on in our last few minutes. One of the issues, certainly that I know that you wrote about that has been an issue in our elections, and other parts of the world are the issue of migrants. One of the countries right now, that has a lot of people leaving it, certainly for the United States is Venezuela, which is also holding its elections this year, with the authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, seeking to remain in power. Are elections under Maduro even real?

Ishaan Tharoor: We should certainly be cynical about what they will yield, and how they will be conducted. The Biden administration did offer the Maduro government a degree of sanctions relief, in exchange for this agreement surrounding these elections coming up. The opposition in Venezuela had its own primary, where they tapped a leading opposition figure who could potentially challenge Maduro, but there are complications now, and it's really far too early to suggest that we may see a free and fair election in Venezuela, but previous elections, the opposition has run Maduro close, so we'll see.

I think there's reasons to be a bit more optimistic than before, but given the pretty tragic and harrowing course of the last, more than decade in Venezuelan politics, where we've seen complete financial collapse, the emigration, or the flight of millions of refugees, because of the economic situation in the country, the repression and the repressive tactics of the Maduro regime, obviously, there are reasons to be quite cynical, and despair for the situation there.

Brigid Bergin: I'm going to bring in one more caller. Kobina in Essex County, New Jersey. Kobina, thanks for calling WNYC.

Kobina: Thank you very much for having me. [crosstalk] I'd like to talk about-- Can I go ahead?

Brigid Bergin: Yes, go right ahead.

Kobina: Yes. I'd like to talk about the elections happening in Ghana this year 2024. We do have our elections, four years as is done in the United States. The new government in-- The party in power right now, that is the NPP administration led by Akufo-Addo is party that comes to power in Ghana. They try to change the electoral commissioner, that is, having to bring your own referee to a football game.

The electoral commissioner always try to move the goalposts a little bit in favor of the party, because she was appointed by the party in power. She definitely have some affiliation with the party. That is so unfair, that is so unfair. They are doing everything to make sure that the current administration, their nominee will win in 2024, so that whatever corruption that they've evolved in, he will be able to cover up for them, because there's so much corruption that has happened over the past eight years in Ghana.

You can talk about increasing taxes, we have a lot of petroleum and gas, natural resources that have been discovered, but then it is not helping the ordinary Ghanaian, and it's caused a lot of problems. I'll plea that the international community this year, pay particular attention to the elections happening in Ghana, because Ghana right now, we are maybe the top five when it comes to borrowing from the IMF, and other international communities. It's so bad. Living in Ghana is so hard. I'll plea that the international community pay attention to the elections in Ghana.

Brigid Bergin: Kobina, thank you so much for your call, and for giving us your headlines from the elections in Ghana. Ishaan, it's just so striking listening to callers who have such deeply personal connections to these elections, and the feeling of wanting to make sure they get the attention. I would also say, for listeners who have been with us since the start of the show, some frightening echoes from some of the threats to democracy that we started the show talking about, and what we're hearing in the context of some elections around the world. Any reaction to Kobina, and some of the concerns you raised about the election in Ghana?

Ishaan Tharoor: Yes, I think the underlying current here in all the caller's comments, or most of the caller's comments, and what we're seeing across the world, is that the idealism and the hopes and aspirations that we have wrapped up around the democratic process, and what democracy means, has bled out in so many parts of the world. Instead, you see democracies tangled up with a political class that feels entrenched and movable, that operates with impunity, that is corrupt, that doesn't deliver for its people.

Obviously, in that context, in various places, there's a hunger for something different for a reset, for a purging of that political class. We saw that language in the Argentine election last year, we see that language in Trumpism, which will be [chuckles] something that will dominate our whole conversation in the months to come here.

Of course, as the college has said, dealing with corruption, dealing with a feckless political class, is the lived reality of so many people in so many parts of the world. How do you champion liberal idealism in that context?

Brigid Bergin: Wow. To think that we only-- There are several countries that we didn't even get to today. There's still elections that we could have talked about in South Africa, in Taiwan, but we're going to have to leave it there for now. So much that is going to be going, running through my head from this conversation. My guest has been The Post's Global Affairs Columnist, Ishaan Tharoor, who writes their newsletter called Today's WorldView. Thank you so much for coming on.

Ishaan Tharoor: My pleasure.

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