Freedom of expression – an underappreciated civil liberty
Waking up to a different world
The world has been shocked by the morning news on February 24th. Probably, even in 10 years from now, we are still going to remember where we were and what we did when we learned that Russia had just invaded Ukraine.
A few days prior, on Feb 21, Vladimir Putin had convoked the Security Council of the Russian Federation to a televised inquiry. In an Orwellian scene, this group of advisers is kept at a huge distance from their superior. Sitting on their chairs like schoolchildren they are asked to comply with a preconceived decision. If you haven’t done yet, check out the questioning of Sergey Naryshkin, chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service.
How catastrophically wrong the decision to invade turned out to be is becoming ever more obvious as the war drags on: It surfaces unsuspected weaknesses in the Russian army; its “glorious fellows” suffer losses, across all ranks, not seen since the war in Afghanistan; it imposes economic hardship on ordinary people in Russia and a pariah status on Russia as a country; and there is strong evidence that it turns ordinary Russian conscripts into war criminals while imposing death, destruction and suffering on the Ukrainian people.
Nobody knows whether Putin truly expected his troops to be greeted with Russian flags or whether he really believed the Ukrainian government would crumble within days. But how then, over three weeks into the war, on March 18th, could the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow be filled by thousands of flag-waving enthusiasts? Were they freely expressing their opinion?
It is hard to grasp what is going on – and even harder how the situation could have degraded to this point. How come not even trusted advisers can express their views? And why, on March 14th, does Marina Ovsyannikov consider necessary to express hers through an audacious stunt on Russian TV: “They are lying to you”? She has risked her career, family, and more.
Appreciate democracy from a “customer perspective”
A country’s multi-faceted and complex evolution over more than two decades can’t be understood by looking at a single aspect. Yet, winding back the memories of the past 20 years, a crucial civil liberty stands out: the freedom of expression.
True, freedom of expression isn’t but one aspect and is denigrated by the likes of Putin. The functioning of democracy also is under constant scrutiny: how citizens like their elected government; what they think of parliamentary debates in general and of recent laws on the shape of cucumbers to Corona-measures to climate taxes.
In times like these, we need to look at governance from a “customer-perspective”. We must consider what people should be able to expect from their rulers - and hold them accountable. In that regard, the clarity provided by the “State of Democracy” is impressive. I take the freedom to reproduce their “conceptual framework” here. In case that is not ok, I appreciate a hint and remove the following artwork:
Freedom of expression as a civil liberty
According to this framework, democracy is composed of the following attributes:
Civil liberties are one sub-attribute of Fundamental Rights. What is not shown in the framework is that sub-attributes are composed of “indices” and “sub-indices”. For example, civil liberties are themselves composed of
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“Freedom of expression” on its turn is built from the following “sub-indices”:
The framework creates clarity on a concept as complex as democracy. In my view, the true value is provided by the availability of high-quality data for ANY attribute, sub-attribute, index and sub-index, and this for 160+ countries and for every year since 1975, put together with an impressive diligence. What a source for insights! The following discussion can only scratch the surface of what is possible.
Freedom of expression and the special case of Russia
We look at the evolution of the freedom of expression for Russia (in black) against the background of all other countries (grey). During the times of the Soviet Union, the index picks up already in the mid-1980ies – by when Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party. A decade later, and with the arrival of Vladimir Putin, a steady decline over the best part of a generation sets in - Step by step, one of the best-educated societies is systematically deprived of the freedom to express and share their ideas.
How is the rest of the world doing?
With this evolution, and the catastrophic events of 2022, one can ask what other societies are going through a similar experience. I have taken the time-series data for all countries and checked for statistically significant decline in the freedom of expression between 2010 and 2020 (at the time of this writing, 2020 is the last year for which data are available). The following graphs shows the five countries with the steepest decline over that period. As a comparison, I also include the evolution in Russia:
Obviously, all six countries enjoyed a significant improvement before or during the early 1990ies – and experienced a degradation during the 2010s. Would these be independent events? Most dramatic appears the evolution in Poland. Looking at the speed of decline, Russia only follows on rank 35, after Greece, Australia, the Czech Republic, and Cameroon.
The following graph shows the index for the freedom of expression in 2020 (a long bar corresponds to a higher freedom). A significant improvement between 2010 and 2020 is coded as green, a significant decrease as red and when the trend is not statistically significant the bar is colored in grey.Things aren't going into the right direction...
Freedom must be used so it can grow
We have merely looked at data here, data on the freedom of expression. Freedom is like oxygen: you only notice it’s there when you are being starved of it. Different from oxygen in a small room, though, the freedom I use to express my thoughts is not rivalling, it is growing your’s. However, if I hold my thought because I think it might not be well-received, i.e.: if I self-censor, I am forcing you and everyone else to take greater risks at speaking up. Marina Ovsyannikova had to hold up her sign because a letter to the editor or a blog-entry would have been meaningless. Many others self-censor. To maintain and to grow freedom, it must be used, and often.
We are now seeing how toxic propaganda, namely nationalist propaganda, can be. One would hope, though, that it only becomes dangerous in an environment of a poor freedom of expression: when people are allowed to speak up there will always be voices that can set in motion self-healing mechanisms. These voices must be heard and be given the freedom to express themselves. Because it is the freedom of expression and the resulting dialogues that allow society, organizations, teams, and leaders to ponder different perspectives and views. The freedom of expression significantly reduces the risk of catastrophic failure.
?? IT Project Manager | CRM & Digital Transformation | Researcher | PhD Candidate | Tech & Cultural Innovation Advocate
2 年As a Brazilian citizen, the data presented in this article make it clear to me what we have been experiencing there. Worst of all is that often the lack of access to rights that were achieved through many struggles has occurred in a very subtle way, and often even with the support of a part of the population. So much so that for a part of this people, the concept of democracy and freedom is directly linked to the re-establishment of a dictatorial government (the regime in Brazil lasted 21 years). In the last 5 years (especially after the coup against Dilma Roussef) we lost a lot of rights, but the cut goes deeper, and those who are still in power want more. We need tools like this to make access to information efficient and democratic that can change the point of view of those who believe that freedom is living in a regime of equipped institutions. Thank you for your commitment and effort, my dear friend Dr. Michael Ohler.