The V-Dem Institute released its 2025 democracy report, 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped? (March 2025). The report draws on more than 31 million data points for 202 countries between 1789 and 2024. It also involves more than 4,200 academics and country experts to measure over 600 indicators of democracy.
Human Level’s Take:
- Democracy is in precipitous decline. V-Dem reports that there are 72% of people living under autocracies in 2024, up from 71% in 2023. The level of democracy enjoyed by the average person in the world in 2024 is down to 1985 levels.
- V-Dem reports that the 2024 outlook for democracy is the worst in the last 25 years, with a “third wave” of autocratisation spreading and deepening. The world now has fewer democracies (88) than autocracies (91) for the first time in more than two decades. Liberal democracies (29) are now the least common regime type.
- This entails weakening of democratic norms in established liberal democracies, breakdown of democracies that have been democratic for much of the last century, and deepening of autocracy in already autocratic states.
- These trends will have ripple effects. Democracy and open civic space are foundations for human rights. They are also vital for companies. The more autocratic the government, the more challenging it is for companies to respect human rights in their operations and value chain.
- Companies have a unique role to play. They can advocate for democratic values and avoid lobbying that undermines legitimate democratic processes. They can strengthen civic space by empowering workers to join trade unions and bargain collectively and by adopting policies to protect human rights defenders. They can undertake collaborative efforts between companies, governments, unions and NGOs. Let’s do what we can to stop the backsliding and set democracy back on track.
Some key takeaways:
- The state of democracy in 2024: The level of democracy enjoyed by the average person in the world in 2024 is down to 1985 levels. In what V-Dem calls a “global wave” of autocratisation the level of democracy weighted by GDP of the assessed countries is at its lowest in 50 years, reflecting a decline in economic power of democracies. The world now has fewer democracies (88) than autocracies (91) for the first time in more than two decades. In addition, liberal democracies (29) are now the least common regime type and 72% of people live in autocracies, the highest proportion since 1978. There have been especially steep declines in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. At the same time, the 2024 global year of elections did not significantly change trends: out of the 61 countries that held elections last year, only 11 of them changed trajectory in either direction.
- Autocratisation vs. democratisation: V-Dem reports that we are the midst of the “third wave” of autocratisation, a period of increasing autocratisation that started 40 years ago. Forty-five countries are currently in the process of autocratising, but 25 of these were democracies at the start of their decline; out of these, only 9 can still be classified as democracies as of the end of 2024. Around 40% of the global population lives in countries that are autocratising and only 6% of the global population lives in countries that are democratising. Two thirds of these live in Brazil, Poland and Thailand. V-Dem reports that media censorship is the top mode of undermining democracy, followed by undermining elections and civil society. By contrast 19 countries are actively democratising and 9 of these have achieved democratic status. V-Dem has put seven countries on its “watchlist” as potential autocratisers, meaning that they are very close to qualifying as full autocracies: Cyprus, Madagascar, Namibia, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Togo. Three countries are on the watchlist as potential democratisers: Czechia, Guatemala and Malaysia.
- Key freedoms are in decline: V-Dem finds that aspects of democracy are declining in more countries than improving. Freedom of expression has worsened in 44 countries, up from 35 in 2023. In addition, “clean” elections decline in 25 countries; freedom of association worsened in 22 countries; and the rule of law was weakened in 18 countries. In addition, “deliberative aspect” — the prevalence of respectful, fact-based debate in the public sphere — declined in 27 countries, compared to just 19 in 2023. By contrast, during periods of democratisation, V-Dem finds that freedom of expression improves the most, followed by strengthened rule of law and executive oversight.
