____________

• Democracy and freedom:
  

• During the 20th century, there was a dramatic growth in democracy, especially among the more developed countries, and decline in monarchy and colonialism. There was also, unfortunately, an increase in authoritarian regimes, and currently, 33 percent of people in less developed countries are living in countries with authoritarian regimes.

• In the last several decades, there has only been moderate growth in freedom, and in 2000, about 40% of people in less developed countries still lived in countries that were not free.

• Armed conflicts and refugees:

• In the past half century, armed conflicts, mainly interal conflicts, increased continuously from 1950 to the mid 1990s and have recently declined.
  

• In the last several decades, the number of refugees has also increased from 1980 to the early 1990's and have recently declined.

• Terrorism:
  

• The number of terrorist incidents has, overall, declined since the mid to late 1980s, except in Asia where according to one source, there has been increases.
  

• Casualties and deaths from terrorist attacks generally follow less consistent patterns. However, it appears that Asia has experienced an increasing trend in casualties from terrorism since 1997. The Middle East has also appeared to have experienced an increase in casualties from terrorism, although it is difficult to say whether this is a trend.
  

____________________

A. Political governance

During the 20th century, the number of democratic states and number of people living in democracies increased. In 2000, over half of the world population lives in democracy, but one third live in authoritarian regimes.

Almost all more developed states are now democracies. Almost 2/3^rds of less developed countries are democracies, but almost 30 percent are authoritarian or totalitarian regimes.

B. Freedom

The Freedom House country ratings also can be combined with census from the International Database data to show the number of people who were living in countries with freedom, partial freedom and no freedom. These data show that freedom increased for both less developed and more developed countries. However, using population to examine freedom in less developed countries shows

1. Only moderate growth in the number of people in freedom in Less Developed countries.

2. Significantly less freedom and less growth in freedom than might be indicated by looking at freedom using countries as the unit of analysis. For example, table 2 shows over 50% of less developed countries are democracies. However, only 32% of people in less developed countries live in countries that are free.

The above analysis does not include many of the countries and satelites of the former Soviet Union. These countries did not exist until 1990 or so. In 2000, a few of these countries (e.g., Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, also East Germany) were free. Several more were partially free, but a few (e.g., Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan) were still not free in 2000. Inclusion of these countries might change the percents above slightly.

A number of less developed countries gained freedom, while a number of less developed countries lost partial freedom. (No countries went from Free to Not Free.)
 

Almost all of the growth and decline in armed conflict is accounted for by internal conflict, or civil wars. For all of this time period, the number of internal conflicts was about 50 or fewer in any single year. That is, among the 190 countries of the world, and at most 26% of countries were experiencing civil war, and thus almost 75% of countries were not.

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D. Refugees

The pattern of refugees seems to follow the pattern of civil warfare, shown in figure one above. That is, there was an increase during the 1980s and then a decrease in the 1990s.

During this time period, the number of refugees was generally less than 20 million in any year. This is less than 0.3% of the total world population, and less than 0.4% of LDC population. However, of course, any number of refugees is too many.

Data on refugees by region show that over the last several years, most refugees are from Asia, then from Africa. A smaller number are from Europe. Additional data (not presented) shows that there has been a continuous decline in the number of refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean, from 172 thousand in 1992 to 85 thousand in 2001.

Figure 3
Estimated Number of Refugees
1992 to 2002

Calculated by Dr. Shackman from data at UNHCR statistics site
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/statistics
UNHCR STATISTICAL YEARBOOK 2001, 2002, Annex A.5
Refugee population by region of origin, 1992-2001 (thousands).

E. Terrorism

Figure 6
International Terrorist Incidences
1968 to 2004

Graph from MIPT database, had been here http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp
Used by permission
Some of the graphs and data are now here  http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/  


Figure 7
Casualties from International Terrorist Incidents, by region
1991-2003

Prepared by Dr. Shackman from reports at   http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/

Figure 8
Deaths from International Terrorist Attacks
1968 to 2004
Excluding North America

Graph from MIPT database, had been here http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp
Used by permission
Some of the graphs and data are now here  http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/  

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_____________

Different governancy types were defined as:

Democracies: These are political systems whose leaders are elected in competitive multi-party and multi-candidate processes in which opposition parties have a legitimate chance of attaining power or participating in power.

Restricted democratic practices: These are primarily regimes in which a dominant ruling party controls the levers of power, including access to the media, and the electoral process in ways that preclude a meaningful challenge to its political hegemony. In the first half of the century, states with restricted democratic practices included countries which denied universal franchise to women, racial minorities, and the poor and landless.

Monarchies: These are divided into three groups: constitutional monarchies, in which a constitution delineates the powers of the monarch and in which some power may have devolved to elected legislatures and other bodies; traditional monarchies; and absolute monarchies, in which monarchic power was exercised in despotic fashion.

Authoritarian regimes: These are typically one-party states and military dictatorships in which there are significant human rights violations.

Totalitarian regimes: These are the one-party systems that establish effective control over most aspects of information, engage in propaganda, control civic life, and intrude into private life. Typically, these have been the Marxist-Leninist and national socialist regimes.

Colonial and imperial dependencies: These are the territories that were under the domination of the large imperial systems that predominated in the first half of the century.

Protectorates: These are countries that have by their own initiative sought the protection of a more powerful neighboring state or are under the temporary protection and jurisdiction of the international community.

Freedom

Freedom House state freedom was here
http://www.freedomhouse.org/ratings/index.htm
Since 1972, Freedom House has published an annual assessment of state state of freedom by assigning each country and territory the status of "Free," "Partly Free,"
or  "Not Free" by averaging their political rights and civil liberties ratings.

The definitions were listed at
http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2000/methodology.htm
According to this page: "The Survey attempts to judge all countries and territories by a single standard and to emphasize the importance of democracy and freedom. At a minimum, a democracy is a political system in which the people choose their authoritative leaders freely from among competing groups and individuals who were not designated by the government. Freedom represents the opportunity to act spontaneously in a variety of fields outside the control of the government and other centers of potential domination."

"Freedom House rates ...  the rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals in each country or territory."

"The Survey’s understanding of freedom encompasses two general sets of characteristics grouped under political rights and civil liberties. Political rights enable people to participate freely in the political process, which is the system by which the polity chooses authoritative policy makers and attempts to make binding decisions affecting the national, regional, or local community. In a free society, this represents the right of all adults to vote and compete for public office, and for elected representatives to have a decisive vote on public policies. Civil liberties include the freedoms to develop views, institutions, and personal autonomy apart from the state."

In the figure presented above, each former Soviet Union state is counted seperately. Before the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, each state had the Soviet Union rating of "Not Free" assigned to it. After 1991, each state was rated seperately.
 

Armed Conflict, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO),  http://www.pcr.uu.se/   specifically from the Armed Conflict 1946 - 2001, Gleditsch, Wallensteen, Eriksson, Sollenberg & Strand, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University at this PRIO website
http://new.prio.no/CSCW-Datasets/Data-on-Armed-Conflict/UppsalaPRIO-Armed-Conflicts-Dataset/

The codebook is: Armed Conflict Dataset Codebook, Håvard Strand, Lars Wilhelmsen & Nils Petter Gleditsch, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). in collaboration with: Peter Wallensteen, Margareta Sollenberg & Mikael Eriksson, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University
and Halvard Buhaug & Jan Ketil Rød, Department of Sociology and Political Science/Department of Geomatics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Version 1.2, 31 January 2003

According to the codebook: "An armed conflict is a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths." (page 2.)

Further, according to the codebook (page 8 and 9):

There are four types of conflict:
1. Extra-state: Extra-state conflict is a conflict over a territory between a government and one or more opposition groups, where the territory is a colony of the government.
2. Interstate: Interstate conflict is a conflict between two or more countries and governments.
3. Internal: Internal conflict is conflict within a country between a government and one or more opposition groups, with no interference from other countries
4. Internationalized internal: Similar to Internal conflict, but where the government, the opposition or both sides receive support from other governments

Terrorism

Patterns of Global Terrorism - US Department of State
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/
statistical data from various years, of international terrorism, that is, terrorism involving people from more than one country.
2000 report is at   http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2000/
See the introduction at   for definitions of terrorism:

No one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. For the purposes of this report, however, we have chosen the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). That statute contains the following definitions:

-  The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant^* targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.
-  The term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than one country.
-  The term "terrorist group" means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.

* For purposes of this definition, the term "noncombatant" is interpreted to include, in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed or not on duty.

Prepared by gene shackman, wang xun and ya-lin liu
First Copyright March 2003, Renewed October 2004 and in April 2008.  May be freely used provided proper citation is given.

Cite as

Shackman, Gene, Ya-Lin Liu and Xun Wang. 2004. Brief review of world political trends.  Available at
http://gsociology.icaap.org/report/polsum.html

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