Freedom in Free Fall

Courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

In March 2026, Freedom House, a Washington-based nonprofit founded in 1941 that monitors democracy, political freedom, and human rights around the world, released its annual Freedom in the World. Its findings: For the twentieth consecutive year, the world has grown less free. The report found that political rights and civil liberties deteriorated in 54 countries during 2025, while only noting 35 registered gains. Just 21% of the world’s population now lives in countries rated Free, down from 46% two decades ago. Military coups, violence against peaceful protesters, and efforts to hollow out constitutional safeguard have driven the latest downturn. 

A second major assessment, published September 2026, reinforces this picture. International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy 2026 report concludes that 2025 was the 11th consecutive year in which more countries declined in democratic performance instead of improved. Of the 174 countries assessed, 98 (57%) had slipped in at least one measure of democratic performance compared with five years earlier, while 55 (32%) improved. Freedom of expression suffered the widest erosion, severely weakening in 42 countries, followed closely by press freedom in 39. 

What sets this year’s findings apart from others is the prominence of the United States. Among the 88 countries rated Free by the Freedom House, the U.S. recorded a three point drop from 84 to 81 out of 100. It is stated that this is its lowest score since Freedom House began publishing their numerical rating data in 2002. The organization pointed to worsening congressional gridlock, rising reprisals against nonviolent speech, expanding claims of unilateral executive power, along with weakened anticorruption safeguards. It also has noted that the United States has experienced a 12-point decline over twenty years under both Republican and Democratic administrations. 

International IDEA went even further, describing the U.S. as the “most prominent example and accelerator” of a global weakening of the rule of law and found that nearly half the indicators (measures in International IDEA's Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices) measuring American democracy have fallen to 50 year lows. Furthermore, Judicial independence, effective parliament, and free political parties are all at their lowest level since the data began in 1975.  The report cited funding cuts to public broadcasters, lawsuits against major news organizations, and the withholding of federal funds from premier educational institutions, including Columbia University and Harvard University. It has also highlighted the deportation of 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, many whose access to due process has been questioned. 

The effects reach far beyond American borders. According to this report, democratic regression is expanding the conditions for domestic and international conflict. Washington's retreat from democratic norms has altered relations with multilateral institutions and leaders elsewhere. Serbian officials, for example, invoked President Trump’s claim of mismanagement of USAID to justify raids on civil society organizations. The dismantling of USAID, historically the world’s largest funder of democracy support, has combined with aid cuts in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to shrink the resources available to democratic reformers abroad. The British and Dutch cuts work differently. They do not legitimize crackdowns as the Serbian example does, but they reduce the funding democracy-support programs depend on. 

Analysts warn that democratic decline carries real security costs. International IDEA finds that most countries now sit in a “politically fragile in-between condition.” These states are neither consolidated democracies nor full autocracies, and those at the lower end face heightened risk of instability and violence. The timing is very stark: 2025 saw 65 violent conflicts, the highest number since the Uppsala Conflict Data Program began its record in 1946, which included a record eight between states.

Freedom House found Entrenched autocracies also tightened their grip. Iran arrested more than 21,000 people after its 12-day war with Israel, Russia further suppressed antiwar speech and independent journalism, and China cracked down on small but multiplying protests. Guinea-Bissau and Tanzania posted the steepest one-year declines of any country. The longer trend is equally striking here. V-Dem Institute data showed that in 2024, autocracies outnumbered democracies for the first time in over two decades, with 72% of humanity living under autocratic rule. 

Still, the story is not totally uniform. For example, Bolivia, Fiji, and Malawi were upgraded to Free in 2025 on the strength of competitive elections and growing judicial independence. Of the 87 countries rated Free in 2005, 76 have kept that status throughout two decades of global decline. Poland recorded seven advances across all four IDEA’s categories.

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based nonpartisan think tank founded in 1916 and one of the most widely cited public policy research organizations in the United States argue that democratic erosion is reversible when citizens act quickly. Their view matters here because it offers a counterweight to the bleak data from Freedom House and International IDEA: rather than only measuring decline, it asks what has actually stopped it. They point to South Koreans’ swift resistance to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial-law declaration and to large-scale mobilization across Brazil and a later conviction of former President Jair Bolsonaro for  a coup in 2022. They also cited Moldova’s pro-European victory despite Russian interference and Nepal’s youth-led corruption protests. The authors note research showing that between 1993 and 2023, more than half of democracies that began transforming to autocracy reversed course.

Both organizations go beyond diagnosis to recommend remedies. Freedom House urges democracies to coordinate more closely, diversify democracy assistance funding through public and private partnerships, and engage young people in the digital spaces where civic identity now forms. International IDEA meanwhile, frames democratic support as conflict prevention and recommends reserving resources for early intervention where backsliding raises the risk of violence. Whether governments take notice of that advice may determine if a third decade of decline will follow the second.