One-third of the world’s population lives in a declining democracy

Many scholars have argued that democracy — particularly in the United States — is under threat. Examples include Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s analysis of democratic backsliding and Yascha Mounk’s stringent critique of whether American democracy truly represents its citizens. Our newly released 2018 Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project report rates the state of democracy across 178 countries, offering the most updated, comprehensive assessment of where things stand.

A year ago, in 2017, we found that democracy was on the decline — but not as much as many pundits believed. Today, we are less optimistic than we were a year ago. Our new report shows that democracy’s decline is gaining momentum: One-third of the world’s population lives in a backsliding democracy.

These conclusions are based on new data released by the V-Dem Project, the largest-ever social-science effort to measure democracy around the world.

The survey asks more than 3,000 scholars and other country experts to evaluate each of 178 countries on the quality of core features of democracy. These experts distinguish between de jure and de facto democratic countries. For example, most countries today hold elections, but some of these elections are free and fair while others are severely rigged.