A few bright spots: our country of the year

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Today. We're going to unveil the Economist's country of the Year for 2021, the place that most improved over the past 12 months. We'll speak to the editorial staff to run through which countries they nominated and why. Settling on a winner this year or even nominees wasn't easy. Improvement was pretty hard to find, no matter which region we examined. Before we get to the short list, we're going to look at one region that offered up no contenders whatsoever, a region that typified that slow slide of civic south and Southeast Asia.

Some analysts talk about what's happening as a sort of democratic recession, but the term recession really implies something cyclical with inevitable recovery. You hit the bottom and then you start going back up. The problem is in much of Asia, that's a heroic assumption.

Leo Mehrani is our Asia editor and is based in Mumbai.

Across the entire continent, the pandemic has given leaders the opportunity to flex their authoritarian muscles and they've been expanding the limits of their power.

So where is this happening?

Where is it not happening? Jason let's start with Southeast Asia that had a particularly bad 2021, especially Myanmar, which had a coup on February 1. Its army chief se and has since ruled with terror. It's now the second coup led military dictatorship in the region after Thailand. A very bleak joke doing the rounds had the head of Myanmar's junta asking Thailand's now prime minister how to set up a proper democracy. That's two countries. You add to that the Leninist dictatorships of Laos and Vietnam. You have an absolute monarchy in Brunei. And you have Cambodia where Hun Sen's rule is approaching 37 years. It's a pretty dismal picture. That's Southeast Asia.

Well, what about South Asia?

South Asia not offering very much hope either. We have the Taliban seizing power in Afghanistan and America's hasty evacuation last night in Kabul.

The United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history. We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety.

In Sri Lanka, President Rajapaksa and his brothers are turning the state into a family fiefdom. And then there's India, the biggest and most important country in the region, where the prime Minister Narendra Modi is continuing to hound critics and stoke sectarian tensions, especially as elections approach. The biggest state in the country with some 200 million people.

And you mentioned the pandemic as a contributing factor here.

That's right, Jason. The pandemic has given authoritarian leaders as well as democratic leaders actually an excuse to bring in a broad range of restrictions on civil society, a broad range of security clampdowns as well. You add to that that, you know, people's livelihoods have been destroyed in many of these countries that have large informal econom. And what all of this has done is just hand more and more power to central governments to make rules. And once they make these rules, they're not going to give up these extra powers that they've accumulated very easily.

But you mentioned this isn't just sort of existing authoritarian streaks. It's authoritarian streaks that are arising in seemingly more democratic places.

Indeed, and not just pandemic related. I mean, some of the stuff that we're talking about has been more of a secular trend to continue the financial metaphor. So in Indonesia, President Joko Widodo, who is known as Jokowi, he's been using Internet laws to silence critics. He's been defanging the anti corruption commission. Meanwhile in Malaysia, which, you know, after decades of rule by one party elected or put in power a reformist government, that reformist government eventually succumbed to general instability itself. Some of the members of that government rejoined the old ruling party, which is extremely corrupt. And the old ruling party is back in power. A recent state election in Malaysia showed that voters seem keen on that party as well. So it's not just in autocratic countries, in democratic countries as well, the omens are not good.

I note one notably authoritarian country in Asia that you haven't yet mentioned is China.

So China is obviously a big authoritarian country in the region. And it is one that many feared would in many ways undermine democracy in Asia, would perhaps interfere or try to influence its neighbors, and have quite a marked negative effect. Fortunately, that does not seem to have come to pass this year. Indeed, Taiwan, the main object of China's bullying, has been a rare democratic beacon in the region. And now, by the same token, America's rhetorical promotion of democracy, that doesn't resonate widely either. Asian liberals know very well that the priority for American democracy is to hang on, not necessarily to lead, despite all the rhetoric.

So aside from the point that China hasn't made things markedly worse this year, you've painted a fairly dismal picture here. Is there room for improvement, reasons to expect improvement, perhaps in 2022?

There's always room for improvement. And there are reasons to be optimistic. One is the nature of democracy in many Asian countries, which are parliamentary systems. And they're embedded strongly enough in many of these countries to expect that even after strongman, genuine democracy will reconsolidate. Another reason is that once people get used to voting, they decide they quite like it. So take Indonesia, which has suffered dictatorships in the past. Now, for all of Jokowi's backsliding on democracy, it is very likely that future elections will remain fair. And then beyond these sort of institutional reasons, there's also young Asians. Asia is a very young continent and the young are sick of rigged political systems, they're sick of craft based economies, and they're particularly sick of poor job prospects. Malaysia stands out in this regard. Next year the voting age will be lowered and a whole bunch of young people will become eligible to vote. They'll probably have an election next year as well, or at the latest in 2023. So we can expect to see that in action there. And then there was another bright spot. In 2021, Maria Ressa, who runs Rappler Rabble drowsing website in the Philippines, won the Nobel Peace Prize. When the government uses steel to pound someone down, they come back stronger. I hope that the Philippine government sees this as a victory for the Filipino people. We're going to keep making sure that our public sees the facts, understands it. We're not going to be harassed or intimidated into silence or not doing our jobs. And even Rodrigo Duterte, the president who had hounded her and the site was supposed to congratulate her. Given everything we've discussed, given the sort of 2021 that Asia has had, you can count that as a success.

Leo, thanks very much for joining us.

Thanks very much for having me, Jason.

If you've been listening to the show over the past 12 months, I don't need to tell you that it's been a pretty gloomy year for news all over the world.

I never thought I would see an armed mob like this break windows and get into the United States Capitol.

The leading critic of the Kremlin, Alexei.

Navalny, has been detained by police after returning to Moscow for the first time since being poisoned with a nerve agent.

After nearly a decade sharing power with civilians, Myanmar's military staged a coup.

The UN Rights Commission has called for a full inquiry into possible war crimes.

In Ethiopia, the coronavirus pandemic has now.

Claimed 5 million lives.

But it wasn't all bad. Which brings us to our annual celebration of where things went right, the Economists country of the Year contest. Our global staff of correspondents and editors debated and deliberated on the countries that improved most over the course of 2021. Last year, the winner was Malawi.

Malawi has proved to be a shining exception to the general slide away from.

Democracy that we're seeing in recent years.

In East Africa.

In 2019, Uzbekistan took the prize.

It's changed dramatically.

The new president began to reform more or less everything.

Before that, it was Armenia, France and Colombia. The grueling task of selecting a winner, of determining that most improved status, falls to our foreign editor, Robert Guest.

Well, there are no written rules for this, so it could be improvement on any measure or preferably a wide range of them. You know, has the country gotten more democratic? Has it gotten richer? Has it gotten freer? Are the people happier? Has there been some great improvement either at home or in its relations with the outside world? It could be anything.

In which case, tell me about the selection process. How do you. How do you pick a winner?

We solicit nominations from all Economist contributors by email, and they send them in and we get a great big long list of them in a big email chain, and then we have a serious discussion, alas, remotely, at the moment because of COVID 19, and we debate the options.

Okay, so tell me about the nominations you received.

So Covid vaccines rolled out in 2021 and a number of pitches included countries successes on that front.

Israel was the world leader on rolling.

Out COVID 19 vaccine and the first country anywhere to roll out booster vaccines.

Britain has been incredibly successful in its.

Discovery of drugs and vaccines that are.

Saving millions of lives from COVID all.

Around the world, a number of countries were singled out for their willingness to defend Taiwan.

Over the last year, Japan's senior politicians have made it increasingly clear that the Japanese Self Defense Forces would probably defend Taiwan in the case that it was attack.

There was even some talk of picking Taiwan itself, despite China's insistence that it's not a country for thriving as a.

Democracy of 24 million people while under.

Constant and increasing pressure from China. They are an example of what a.

Democracy should be in a world that has precious few of those. Some writers thought America was worth a mention for getting rid of a somewhat divisive president.

There's a very good argument that America has done more than any other country this year to improve itself just by dumping Trump as its president.

Our Africa editor thought we should praise the Republic of Somaliland, which is a de facto country, a breakaway portion of Somalia.

Twenty years ago, Somaliland's people voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum.

Since then, it has become a functioning state in all but name.

It's relatively peaceful and holds regular elections.

But it's not been officially recognized by any other state. And we had one perhaps frivolous vote for a place to which a huge portion of the world's young people are clamoring to go. I'm going to nominate Fortnite island as.

Country of the Year.

Now, I realize it's not a real country, it's just a place in a video game, and it does have quite a serious problem with violent crime. But this year we've all spent so much time in virtual locations that aren't real places at all, and there's been so much buzz about the Metaverse that I think it would make a good winner.

Right, so your task then was to narrow that email chain down into a short list. Which countries were the top contenders?

The cases that seemed strongest to us included Lithuania.

I am Arkoi Di Ostrovsky and I'm Russia and Eastern Europe Editor, the Economist A small Baltic country Of less than 3 million people, Lithuania stood up to powerful dictatorships and totalitarian regimes in defense of free and liberal order. It has sheltered Belarusian dissidents and politicians who have been forced out of the country by a bloody dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. It has provided home to Russian opposition politicians who had to flee their country after the arrest of Alexei Navalny. And it stood up to China, allowing representative office of the Democratic island of Taiwan to open up in Vilnius.

Zambia I'm Avantika Chilkoti and I'm the Economist's international correspondent. Let's think about where Zambia started the year. I mean, we talked about Zambia being set on becoming like Zimbabwe. It was corrupt, it was broke, it was undemocratic. But then Zambians booted out the populist president, Edgar Lungu. And the new president, who everyone calls hh, has struck a deal with the imf and he's begun discussions with China on renegotiating the country's opaque debt. Tiny Moldova Matt.

I'm Matt Steinglass, the Economist's Europe correspondent.

Moldova is one of the smallest countries in Europe.

It's also one of the poorest and most corrupt. Part of its territory has been occupied.

By Russian troops for decades.

And until 2019 its politics were dominated by oligarchs who used the country's economy.

To launder ill gotten Russian money to the West.

But at the end of 2020, Moldovans.

Elected a reformist pro European president, Maya Sandu.

And in 2021 elections they gave her party a majority in parliament. So she now has a like minded Prime Minister. The two of them have laid out an agenda of eliminating corruption and bringing the country closer to the European Union. They would like to clean up its politics and improve its economy.

And the final country on the shortlist is our winner.

And the winner is.

Italy with its reformist Prime Minister.

We must do all we can to overcome our differences.

High vaccination rate and multiple successes of sport and singing.

And it's Italy who are the champions of Europe.

Italy is the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. It's had a pretty good year.

Right? With that, I'd like to bring in John Hooper, the Economist's Rome correspondent who made the pitch for Italy in the first place. John, what good do you think it does Italy to. To receive this gong?

Well, I don't think that one should exaggerate the impact of an award given by a magazine. But having said that, Italy does pay quite a lot of attention to the way that it is viewed outside. And in the past, the Economist has been highly critical of Italy of its political choices and its economic progress, or rather lack of it. And then this year we've seen a really abrupt change and I think that the recognition of that it will cause a big stir. People will be delighted by this coming at the end of a year in which Italy has excelled in a number of areas, sporting, musical, and even in fact, shared in a Nobel Prize altogether. I think it rounds off an annus mirabilis for Italy.

And John, as Robert mentioned, Mario Taraghi became the Prime Minister this year. Why is it that was so transformative?

Well, I think that on the one hand, Italy acquired a prime minister of international renown, a former president of the European Central bank. And that's quite a contrast to what went before two governments headed by a man who had not had any political experience beforehand. Though Giuseppe Conte did some useful things, particularly in his second government, he was not frankly in the same category as Mario Draghi. The other effect of Draghi which arises from his standing is that he managed to bring together an unlikely, very broad coalition of parties to support the program of reform that's required of Italy if it's going to get its full allocation of the money under the so called new generation EU program, the European Union's post pandemic recovery plan.

And Robert, as John has pointed out, the economist has been critical of Italy in the past, famously in the Berlusconi years. You must think that Mr. Draghi is capable of big reform to have voted Italy in this year.

I think you have to remember where Italy's come from. I mean, because of the really poor way it been governed, Italians were actually poorer in 2019 than they had been two decades previously in 2000. And the Berlusconi administration was best known for sex parties and scandals and incompetence. So it's really impressive that they've got someone so serious, so thoughtful and so committed to getting, you know, some basic things right. The award's about improvement. And clearly Italy is better now than it was a year ago.

And there have been instances in the past where our country of the Year basically made a downturn shortly after receiving the award of country of the Year. John, do you think there's a danger of that here?

Yes, I think there's always a danger of that in Italy. Mr. Draghi is thought to want the presidency that comes up for grabs in January, in effect, and that would take him into a more ceremonial role. Though the President does have quite extensive powers at certain points, he's not got the kind of hands on control of government that the Prime Minister has. And if he moves on, there is a risk that Italy could pitch back into the normal kind of political squabbling that we've seen over many decades now.

Robert, spare a thought for all of the world leaders who are disappointed after this award has been announced. What advice would you give them to to be in contention for, for the next year's competition?

Well, no doubt this is very much on the minds of world's leaders right now. There's several things they can do. They can ensure better rollout of vaccines in their country. They can adopt sensible policies on the climate and the economy. And actually, in some cases, the best thing they could do is resign.

John, Robert, thank you both very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, leave us a rating and a review and you can subscribe to the economist@examiner.com intelligenceoffer. The link is in the show Notes. See you back here tomorrow.