>Moscow’s war to destroy Ukraine and the Azerbaijani regime’s military conquest and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh laid bare the deadly consequences of autocracy’s expansion. These events have critically undermined a fundamental assumption by the creators of Nations in Transit, that all the countries in the region are progressing toward the same end point of peaceful, democratic consolidation. Instead, many are moving, or being forced to move, in the opposite direction.
…
>The scores for the remaining four countries in the category—the hardened dictatorships of Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—were already at or near the bottom of the Nations in Transit scale.
…
>In the South Caucasus, Armenia’s democratization efforts were adversely affected by the Azerbaijani regime’s brutal offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, which prompted the more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians living there to flee west. They have now settled mostly in Armenia itself, where the government is attempting to address their humanitarian needs while also defending its own territory, consolidating power amid domestic criticism, and responding to the demands for better governance that sparked the country’s 2018 revolution.
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>Russia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan’s scores have dropped so far over the last 20 years that many of their scores have reached 1.00, the lowest possible.
Many of these countries have little-to-no room to drop lower in our scoring.
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>Azerbaijan’s government has severely restricted the space for civil society and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to operate freely in the country. The country’s Civil Society score has fallen by 2.00 points over the past 20 years.
Prestigious-Hand-225 on
I hope corruption never leaves Azerbaijan, even once their petro resources run their course. The Azerbaijani people deserve no better.
2 Comments
This is a huge report:
>Moscow’s war to destroy Ukraine and the Azerbaijani regime’s military conquest and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh laid bare the deadly consequences of autocracy’s expansion. These events have critically undermined a fundamental assumption by the creators of Nations in Transit, that all the countries in the region are progressing toward the same end point of peaceful, democratic consolidation. Instead, many are moving, or being forced to move, in the opposite direction.
…
>The scores for the remaining four countries in the category—the hardened dictatorships of Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—were already at or near the bottom of the Nations in Transit scale.
…
>In the South Caucasus, Armenia’s democratization efforts were adversely affected by the Azerbaijani regime’s brutal offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, which prompted the more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians living there to flee west. They have now settled mostly in Armenia itself, where the government is attempting to address their humanitarian needs while also defending its own territory, consolidating power amid domestic criticism, and responding to the demands for better governance that sparked the country’s 2018 revolution.
…
>Russia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan’s scores have dropped so far over the last 20 years that many of their scores have reached 1.00, the lowest possible.
Many of these countries have little-to-no room to drop lower in our scoring.
…
>Azerbaijan’s government has severely restricted the space for civil society and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to operate freely in the country. The country’s Civil Society score has fallen by 2.00 points over the past 20 years.
I hope corruption never leaves Azerbaijan, even once their petro resources run their course. The Azerbaijani people deserve no better.