Rwanda
Rwanda exhibits low-range performance across all four categories of the Global State of Democracy Indices (GSoDI) framework. Over the past five years, it has seen notable declines in Freedom of Movement and Predictable Enforcement, though there has been an improvement in Personal Integrity and Security. Rwanda is a low-income country, but it has maintained rapid GDP growth over the last decade. While the agricultural sector continues to dominate Rwanda’s economy, there has been significant private sector development, leading some to label it the “Singapore of Africa.”
The territory that is now Rwanda was long inhabited by the Twa, Hutu, and Tutsi peoples. Prior to independence in 1962, it was ruled as a colony first by Germany and then Belgium. While there is scholarly disagreement over the nature and origins of the distinctions between the indigenous communities, colonizers rigidified group identities and made social, economic and political relations more unequal, privileging the Tutsi. Shortly before independence, power shifted to the Hutu in a social revolution that forced many Tutsi into exile and led to Hutu rule. It also gave rise to new cycles of violence, as armed attacks from Tutsi exiles precipitated retaliatory violence by the Hutu government on Rwandan-based Tutsis. This dynamic eventually led to the genocide of 1994, in which over 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates are estimated to have been killed by Hutu extremists over the course of 100 days.
Since 1994, Rwanda has been under the continuous and increasingly authoritarian rule of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by President Paul Kagame. Though the government enforces a model of national unity that leaves little space for the expression of ethnic identity, the legacy of the genocide remains salient. The tiny Twa minority, for example, receives no recognition or aid from the state despite suffering greatly during the genocide and experiencing widespread poverty. The shift in the country’s language of business from French to English has created its own cleavage, dividing Tutsis who spent the pre-genocide years in exile in English-speaking countries from those who remained in Rwanda. As of 2022, the country has the world’s highest percentage of women in parliament (over 61 per cent), yet it has lagged in breaking down gender barriers and reducing domestic violence in the home. Finally, the LGBTQIA+ community faces widespread bias and discrimination.
While the RPF government has maintained political stability and progressed in its fight against corruption, there is little space for political dissent and the opposition is marginalized through administrative measures and more coercive means, such as imprisonment. Many government critics have also been forced into exile, where they contend with the regime’s extensive system of extraterritorial repression. Rwanda is a de facto one-party state without free elections or an independent media. The government has, however, placed great emphasis on tackling the country’s development challenges, including the large youth population, a shortage of arable land, landlocked status, and low levels of human capital.
In the years ahead, it will be important to watch for any changes in related to the space for popular participation and voice, which could impact all indicators. The Predictable Enforcement factor should also be observed, particularly since Rwanda’s Rule of Law performance had previously been a bright spot.
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GSoD Indices Data 2013-2022
Basic Information
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Performance by category over the last 6 months
Global State of Democracy Indices
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Factors of Democratic Performance Over Time
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