Democracy Café

Democratic freedoms are on the decline. What can be done to arrest this pernicious development and make sure freedom rings the world over? Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House (freedomhouse.org), an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change and monitors the status of freedom around the world, has an array of timely insights on the matter.  Michael - who before joining Freedom House in February 2017 was director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education, and before that was National Editor and White House correspondent for the Washington Post -- discusses Freedom House's annual report, 'Freedom of the World,' which they've been producing for nearly a half century. Its key indicators -- which track everything from freedom of the press, to rule of law, to free and fair elections -- show that, as Michael puts it, "after a long period of steady growth of democratization....you've had kind of a reversal of that over the last twelve yea