The Christian Science Monitor takes a timely look at trends towards democracy in the world in the light of the forthcoming elections in Palestine and Iraq, and the recent events in Ukraine. They provide appropriate caution (often lacking in the blase idealistic pronouncements of politicians) of the fact that the seed of democracy is unlikely to flourish on stony ground without a considerable amount of support and attention. It is worrying in this context that the US seems to be taking a 'let's get it over with as soon as possible and get out' approach. To stretch the 'you broke it, you fix it' analogy, hastily heaping a few broken shards together in a semblance of the original does not really count.

The Monitor goes on to use the figures of Freedom House to show the growing number of "free" countries in the world. Freedom is measured according to an index of a country's democratic and civil liberties. Any such organisation examing such a nebulous context is bound to show some political or cultural bias. They are criticised by the Left for their definition of Cuba as an "unfree" country, for example. Interestingly, Russia has recently also had its status revised to "unfree" due to Putin's tinkerings. A look at the directors and those making donations, however, reveals that the organisation's supporters come from a broad spectrum of political backgrounds.

With all the appropriate caveats, the data publiched by Freedom House still makes very interesting reading. The 2003 report suggests, for example, that 89 countries are free in 2003 compared with 43 in 1973. Part of this may be accounted for by the fall of the Berlin Wall, but by no means all. In terms of population, 44% were defined as free in 2003 compared with 33% in 1973. The link between prosperity and freedom is strongly underlined by the fact that 89% of the world's GDP resides in free countries, compared with 6% not free.

However skeptical one may be about the derivation of the information, it is difficult to argue with the conclusions. The governments of the world are, with the exception of some local anomalies, tending towards increasing democracy and libertarian societies. It provides considerable solace that in spite of the prevailing tendency of our leaders to underplay the difficulties of manually imposing democracy on a country lacking a predisposed culture, history or appropriate institutions, there is a inaxorable prevailing tendency in the world for people to strive for, and inevitably achieve, unprecedented degrees of political and social choice and liberty.