Democracy is in global decline

What's this about?

People disagree about whether democracy (rule by the people) is getting weaker around the world.

Many big studies show a broad decline, but the change does not look the same in every land.

What supporters say

• Groups such as V-Dem and Freedom House report less free rule in many lands over time.
• Freedom House says freedom has fallen around the world for 20 years in a row.
• These groups find weaker free speech, fair courts, basic rights, and checks on top leaders.
• Rigged votes, threats, and war can harm fair rule, not just make voters unhappy.

What critics say

• The decline does not hit every land, and some lands still protect fair rule well.
• Democracy has not gone away everywhere, even where it has grown weaker.
• Different scorecards judge freedom in different ways, so their exact totals can differ.
• Polls show many people still say they want democracy, though polls cannot prove how well it works.

The bottom line

The best evidence shows that democracy has weakened in many parts of the world.

Still, the trend is uneven, and not every country has moved in the same way.

Democracy is in broad but uneven decline worldwide, according to several major international measures. That does not mean democracy is disappearing everywhere, or that every country is moving in the same direction, but recent global trends point to worsening democratic quality and, by some measures, a smaller share of people living under democratic rule.

The case for

The clearest evidence comes from the agreement among leading global democracy trackers. V-Dem reports continuing “autocratization”; International IDEA finds declines in several areas of democratic performance; Freedom House has recorded a twentieth consecutive year of overall freedom decline; and the Economist Intelligence Unit describes global democracy as stagnant or worsening. Freedom House links the downward trend to authoritarian repression, flawed elections, conflict and weaker public institutions (see Figure 1). 1

These are not simply signs that voters are unhappy with their governments. The reported losses involve the institutions that make democracy work: free speech and independent media, the rule of law, limits on executive power, credible elections, effective parliaments, independent courts and civil liberties. Researchers also point to election manipulation and political violence, suggesting that the decline reaches beyond public opinion and into the foundations of both electoral and liberal democracy. 2

The trend matters especially because it has affected some large countries. A shift in a handful of populous states can significantly change the global picture when democracy is measured by the number of people, rather than simply the number of countries. V-Dem and other comparative data show declines in democratic scores and, under several measures, in the share of the world’s population living in democracies. 3

Public attitudes add a warning sign, though not decisive proof on their own. Surveys show that many people still prefer democracy in principle, but satisfaction with how it performs has fallen in some places. Afrobarometer has found continued support for democratic government alongside lower satisfaction and greater openness in some countries to non-democratic alternatives. World Values Survey data similarly show that support for democracy remains widespread, while trust in institutions and views on strong leaders vary sharply across countries. 4

There are limits to these findings. Major democracy indexes partly rely on expert judgments and on choices about what counts most: elections, civil liberties, checks on leaders or the rule of law. Those choices can affect estimates of how large the decline is and exactly when it began. But the fact that several measures, using different approaches, point in a similar recent direction strengthens the case that the deterioration is real.

The case against

The current downturn should not obscure democracy’s much longer historical rise. Democracy is still far more widespread than it was in earlier eras, even though recent data show reversals or stagnation depending on the measure used (see Figure 2). 5 A recent decline, therefore, is not the same as a claim that the world’s overall historical path has been uniformly downward.

Nor is democratic backsliding universal or permanent. Elections can be used by leaders to weaken institutions, but they can also allow opposition parties to win and restore democratic safeguards. Comparative research finds evidence for both outcomes, while International IDEA and V-Dem identify countries that have improved on at least some democratic measures even as global averages worsened. 6

This means the answer changes somewhat depending on the definition of democracy, the period examined and whether countries are counted equally or weighted by population. A negative movement in an index should not automatically be treated as the collapse of a political system.

The bottom line

The evidence strongly supports the conclusion that democracy has recently declined on a global balance, especially in the quality of core institutions and, under several measures, in democratic prevalence. The confidence in that conclusion is high because independent datasets identify similar patterns of deterioration.

But the decline is uneven, contested and reversible. Some countries continue to improve, democracy remains much more common than it was historically, and elections can still produce democratic recovery. The most accurate reading is not that democracy is facing inevitable worldwide collapse, but that recent global trends have shifted adversely toward weaker democratic institutions and greater authoritarianism.