Thomas Friedman in last Wednesday’s NY Times argued America’s oil dependence and declining soft power - but mostly oil dependence - are driving a global “democratic recession.” I’m sympathetic to the concern about oil but not the logic. One, state weakness has raised the costs of freedom in some places. Two, autocrats are simply more sophisticated when it comes to keeping power. Three, and most important, the ‘developed’ democracies have not consistently supported democrats abroad. My working conclusion: soft power is indeed waning for reasons both structural and intentional.

Friedman cites the Freedom House index for 2008. Attention to where and why ratings fell reveals a more complex causal narrative.

Military interventions in democratic politics drove down ratings in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Faulty, stolen or generally unfree elections affected the Comorros, Kenya, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Russia.

Political violence rocked Sri Lanka, Somalia, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Insurgency or generally rising insecurity eroded freedom in the Central African Republic, Mali, Niger and Afghanistan.

Media crackdowns drove down ratings in Georgia, Mali, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Lesotho, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela and, arguably, the Solomon Islands, where governing authorities refused to address criticism related to a cabinet appointment.

Restrictions on freedom of assembly and organization increased in Burma, Lesotho and Venezuela.

Whether by violence, intimidation or dubious institutional reengineering, executives eroded checks and balances in Malawi, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan and Egypt.

Overt opposition crackdowns took place in Congo-Kinshasa, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Syria.

Corruption and the entrenchment of economic oligarchies diminished freedom in Chad, Latvia, the Philippines, Tunisia, Burma, Madagascar and Somalia.

In Switzerland, the election of overt racists merited demotion.

Government paralysis earned negative points in Lebanon.

The infiltration of state and military by drug cartels drove down ratings for Guinea-Bissau.

While Freedom House’s executive summary does mention oil in two other places, only in Chad does it cite falling transparency in the “management of oil revenues.”

Next year’s report no doubt will cite eroding executive-legislative relations in Russia, a(n attempted?) stolen election in Zimbabwe, and whatever dubious constitutional amendments, opposition crackdowns, exiles and media shutdowns the remainder of 2008 brings. It will be interesting to see how Chinese ‘foreign aid’ packages and the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation figure in.

Overall, freedom declined in 38 nominal democracies. The dominant sources of backslide were corruption, media and opposition crackdowns, state weakness, deliberate election mismanagement and entrenchments of executive power.

Oil dependence is a big problem for the US and even the rest of the world, but it is not the principal driver of “democratic recession.” Alongside more structural problems of uneven economic development and state capacity are growing gaps between flagship democracies’ missions to spread freedom and their wills and means to do so. On one hand, emphasis on stability is replacing their post-Cold War emphasis on democratization. On the other, aid conditionality loses efficacy as rising authoritarian states like China and Russia reach out to Africa and Central Asia.

If democracy is to boom in the last seven months of 2008, the old democracies need to (1) renew their commitment to democratization and (2) cooperate to balance the soft power of authoritarian alternatives.