Democracy

The world has become much more democratic over the last two centuries

Many more countries have become democracies over the last two hundred years. The chart shows — based on data from Regimes of the World (RoW) — that a much larger share of countries are now democracies.

In the late 18th century, no country could be meaningfully characterized as a democracy. RoW classifies almost all of them as closed autocracies, in which citizens do not have the right to choose their political leaders through elections.¹

Elections spread throughout the 19th century, but they were often marred by limitations. Many countries became electoral autocracies, in which political leaders were chosen through elections, but citizens lacked additional freedoms to make those elections free and fair. Only a few countries held elections that were sufficiently meaningful to call them electoral democracies.² And even fewer had the additional individual and minority rights and the constrained governments to consider them liberal democracies.³

Electoral and liberal democracy then spread to many countries in the 20th century. By the end of the century, they had become common political systems around the globe and could be found across all world regions.

Today, the world is about evenly split between autocracies and democracies, according to this data. Most non-democracies are electoral autocracies. And more than a third of all democracies have the additional individual and minority rights that characterize liberal democracies.

Two centuries ago, everyone lacked democratic rights. Now, billions of people have them

Billions of people have gained democratic rights over the last two centuries. The chart shows that many more people now live in democracies, based on the Regimes of the World (RoW) data.

In the 19th century, few people had democratic political rights. In 1800, almost everyone lived in political systems that RoW classifies as closed autocracies. No country was a democracy, and only 22 million people lived in the two countries classified as electoral autocracies: the United Kingdom and the United States.

Since then, many have gained democratic political rights, especially in the second half of the 20th century. By 2022, about 1.3 billion people lived in electoral democracies in all regions of the world: many live in the populous countries of Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa. Another billion people lived in liberal democracies, such as those living in Chile, South Korea, and the United States.

While democratic rights have spread far, they are still far from universal. Because the world’s population grew faster than democracy spread, the total number of people without democratic rights is higher than ever. Almost all of them reside in just one country: China.

There have also been recent setbacks, with many people losing political rights. Most prominently the 1.4 billion people living in India, which — according to the RoW data — became an electoral autocracy in 2017. Other data sources agree that India has become less democratic, but overall still consider India a democracy⁶

In this article we provide more detail:

200 years ago, everyone lacked democratic rights. Now, billions of people have them

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Many democracies are less than a generation old. Dictatorship is far from a distant memory

Democracy is young in most countries that are democratic today. The chart shows that most electoral democracies are younger than its more senior citizens, relying on the Regimes of the World data.

Based on the data, many democracies are less than a generation old. Some are younger than 18 — not older than the children in these countries — and others are only as old as the country’s young adults. In these democracies, most young people have experienced authoritarian rule, and older people have lacked democratic political rights for most of their lives.

A larger group of countries have been electoral democracies for one to three generations. In them, children and young adults have only known life in a democracy. But their parents and grandparents have still experienced non-democratic rule.

Only a few countries have been democratic for a long time and have been electoral democracies for three generations or more. Democracy there is older than almost all of their citizens.

Because electoral democracy is defined as political rights being broad, but not necessarily universal, not everyone has enjoyed democratic political rights in these countries. For example, governments in some countries have forbidden parts of the population, such as women, to vote and stand in elections.

Liberal democracy, in which citizens enjoy additional individual and minority rights, is an even rarer and more recent achievement than electoral democracy. And democracy is a recent achievement regardless of the measure used.

In this article we provide more detail:

In most countries, democracy is a recent achievement. Dictatorship is far from a distant memory

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People around the world have gained democratic rights, but some have many more rights than others

There are large differences in the degree to which citizens enjoy political rights — between democracies and non-democracies, but also within each group. The chart — relying on the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) data — shows that some countries are much more democratic than others.

While almost all countries are much more democratic than they were 100 years ago, there are still large differences between them.

Some countries — mostly located in Europe and the Americas — are highly democratic: they have elected political leaders, elections are broadly free and fair, and most citizens have the right to vote.

Others, especially in Asia, are highly undemocratic. Based on V-Dem, this includes countries such as China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. There, citizens do not have the right to choose their political leaders in popular elections.

Most countries, often in Africa and Asia, fall somewhere in the middle. Political leaders are elected and citizens have the right to vote there, but their rights to associate and express their opinions are limited, and elections are not entirely free and fair.

The chart looks at electoral democratic institutions. Looking at liberal democracy or data from other leading approaches shows similar differences.

In this article we provide more detail:

People around the world have gained democratic rights, but some have many more rights than others

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The world has recently become less democratic

The world has become less democratic in recent years. The chart shows that more countries have been autocratizing recently, based on the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) data.

The number of countries that are autocratizing has been increasing: for 2022, ERT identifies 40 that were autocratizing — an all-time high.

For a long time, the number of autocratizing countries was offset by democratizing ones. But since 2012, the number of countries that are becoming more autocratic has been higher.

Other approaches to measuring democracy also suggest that the world has recently become less democratic — the number of democracies has declined; fewer people are living in democracies, countries and people have on average fewer democratic rights, and more people live in autocratizing countries.

The world was at its democratic ‘all-time high’ in the early 2010s. But since then it has fallen, and now looks more like the 2000s, the 1990s, or even the late 1980s, depending on which democracy measure we rely on.

We have seen similar democratic declines before, and past declines were reversed. People fought previous phases of autocratization in the 1930s and 1960/70s, turned the tide, and pushed democratic rights to unprecedented heights. We can do it again.

In this article we provide more detail:

The world has recently become less democratic

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