Democracy around the World: Between Resurgence and Decline

The world has been experiencing a democracy decline - the global level of democracy is back to the 1986 level. This is one of the main conclusions of the latest democracy report “Defiance in the face of autocratization” presented during an event on 21 March in Brussels, organised by the European Democracy Hub (EDH) and the V-Dem Institute.

According to the report, advances in global levels of democracy made over the last 35 years have been wiped out. By the end of 2022, 72% of the world’s population (5.7 billion people) lived in non-democracies, out of which 28% (2.2 billion people) lived in closed autocracies. Today there are more closed autocracies than liberal democracies and only 13% of the world’s humans (approximately one billion people) live in liberal democracies.

The report sets high standards for identifying a country as a liberal democracy: high enforcement of rule of law and a strong independent judiciary among others. That is why ten European Union countries were classified in 2022 as electoral, not liberal democracies.

The study focuses on the countries undergoing autocratisation, and on the indicators deteriorating the most, including in relation to media censorship, repression of civil society organisations and academic freedom.

“Wannabe dictators use disinformation to achieve polarisation, undermine democracy and transform opposition into “enemies”. This allows them to consolidate their power,” Mr. Staffan I. Lindberg, Director of the V-Dem Institute at University of Gothenburg concluded. He also underlined that, nowadays, most of autocratisation processes happen via legal means, unlike the previous waves, which makes it harder to tackle the new challenges.

And while disinformation, polarisation and autocratisation reinforce each other, democracies reduce the spread of disinformation. This is a sign of hope.

Finally, the V-Dem report states that there is a shift in the global balance of economic and trade power. 46% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product now comes from autocracies and democracies’ dependence on autocratic countries has doubled in the last three decades. The study sees this dependence of democratic countries on autocratic countries for trade as an emergent security issue for democracies. 

Despite the new trends, some countries managed to push back and are now moving towards more democracy – Bolivia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Dominican Republic, Gambia and Malawi being some of the examples.

Among the factors that allow for bouncing back and a restoration of democracy are large-scale mobilisation, an independent judiciary, united opposition and strategy, critical events and elections. International democracy support and protection is also extremely important.

Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow of the Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe, which is a member of the European Democracy Hub, noted that several findings of the EDH research on democracy support funding match the main conclusions of the V-Dem report.

“We observe an increase of democracy support as a response to democratic decline, but the scale is not commensurate.”  

Mr. Youngs informed that a dataset and analytical tool, based mainly on OECD data, measuring democracy support and democracy support policy will be published in June by the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), which is also part of the Hub.

During a panel discussion reflecting on the findings of the study, Thomas Millar, Head of the Democratic Governance Section at DG INTPA, concluded: “We observe popular disappointment in delivery of democracy. However, demand for democracy is always there”.

Mr. Millar added that the Team Europe Democracy (TED) Initiative, created by the European Commission in 2021, aims to work closely together with EU Member States to promote democracy and protect human rights around the world. TED will act globally and deliver locally.

Link to the report: V-Dem Institute, Defiance in the Face of Autocratization, Democracy Report 2023