Manila, Philippines ? The wave of democracy-building that swept the world in the previous two decades has stalled, with some countries slipping into authoritarian rule and political conflict, according to a U.N. report released today.

The United Nations Development Program report, “Deepening democracy in a fragmented world,” said the world is more democratic in terms of the 140 countries that hold multiparty elections than any time in history, but only 82 of countries out of a total of nearly 200 examined are considered full democracies.

It called the level of global inequality “grotesque,” with the income of the world’s richest 5 percent 114 times higher than of the poorest 5 percent.

“The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States cast new light on these divisions, returning strategic military alliances to the center of national policy-making and inspiring heated debates on the danger of compromising human rights for national security,” the report said.

“Around the world, there is a growing sense that democracy has not delivered development such as more jobs, schools, health care for ordinary people,” added Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the report’s chief author.

Fukuda-Parr said politicians have used the pain of transition to justify authoritarianism at the expense of human rights.

Of the 81 countries that embraced democracy in the last two decades of the 20th century, only 47 are considered full democracies today, the report said.

“Many others do not seem to be in transition or have lapsed back into authoritarianism or conflict, as in Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone,” it said.

“Myanmar and Pakistan have returned to military form of government. Failed states, like Afghanistan and Somalia, have become breeding grounds for extremism and violent conflict.”

The trend appeared strongest in the sub-Saharan region, with national armies intervening in political affairs in varying degrees in one in four countries since 1989.

Strengthening democracy around the world would be vital in the battle against social injustice, providing a bulwark against terrorism, the report said. It added that recent research showed established democracies are less prone to civil war than non-democratic regimes, and even countries that have embraced democracy only recently are more likely to cope with political upheaval.

Referring to claims by countries such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Colombia and Kazakhstan that peace and economic prosperity must come first, the report said a democracy’s nonviolent ways of resolving political conflict give an opposition some feeling that its turn may come. The report also pointed out that democratic countries almost never go to war with each other.

Still, the 38 new peacekeeping operations established since 1990, compared with 16 in 1946-1989, reflect that the fabric of global peace is fraying, the report suggested.