The world will continue to see four major challenges to democracy in 2020, says Sook Jong Lee, a Senior Fellow at South Korea’s East Asia Institute:

• First, authoritarian states will keep up their oppression of media and civil society, she writes for a recent Council on Foreign Relations symposium. The Chinese government’s harsh reaction to the ongoing revolt in Hong Kong and the landslide victory for pro-democracy parties in District Council elections last month deserves great attention. Media suppression in Hungary, Russia, and Turkey is also likely to continue.
• Second, attacks against certain ethnic or religious minority groups will persist. State-sponsored violence, such as in the Rohingya crisis, has mostly abated, but lone-wolf hate crimes show no sign of decline.
• Third, political polarization is weakening institutions in advanced democracies. …. Free elections alone will not create the common ground within societies that is critical for a healthy democracy; there must also be political compromise.
• Fourth, both states and individuals are exploiting digital technology to spread disinformation and incite populism. Wise regulations are needed to curb this worrisome trend.

Read the full article in Democracy Digest.