London, Sept 1: Over the last decade, the number of countries considered to be liberal democracies has contracted from 41 to 32, back to the same level as in 1989. In the same period, 87 other countries were labelled as closed autocracies or elected autocracies. A 2021 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit showed that only 8.4% of the world’s population lived in a fully functioning democracy, this shift is being referred to as a “democratic recession”. To many, leaders […]