Democracy
Democracy is broadly understood to mean ‘rule by the people’.
In practice, it is often defined as people choosing their leaders in free and fair elections.
Other definitions go beyond this. For example, some of them see democracy as people having additional individual rights and being protected from the state.
Democracy gives citizens the right to influence important decisions over their own lives and allows them to hold their leaders accountable.
But it can have other benefits too: democratic countries seem better governed than autocracies, seem to grow faster, and foster more peaceful conduct within and between them.
On this page, you can find data, visualizations, and writing on how democracy has spread across countries, how it differs between them, and whether we are moving towards a more democratic world.
Key Insights on 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.
What you should know about this data
- In this chart, we identify the political systems of countries with the Regimes of the World data by political scientists Anna Lührmann, Marcus Tannenberg, and Staffan Lindberg4, published by the Varieties of Democracy project.5
- RoW distinguishes four types of political systems: closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies.
Closed autocracy: citizens do not have the right to choose either the chief executive of the government or the legislature through multi-party elections
Electoral autocracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature through multi-party elections; but they lack some freedoms, such as the freedoms of association or expression that make the elections meaningful, free, and fair
Electoral democracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature in meaningful, free and fair, and multi-party elections
Liberal democracy: electoral democracy and citizens enjoy individual and minority rights, are equal before the law, and the actions of the executive are constrained by the legislative and the courts
- We use the RoW classification and V-Dem data but expand the years and countries covered and refine the coding rules, as explained in our technical article on the RoW data.
- We use the RoW data here, but there are several other leading approaches to measuring democracy, which sometimes classify countries differently. You can explore them in our Democracy Data Explorer.
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 1789, 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 2023, 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 democracy.6
We have an article that discusses the trends in more detail:
200 years ago, everyone lacked democratic rights. Now, billions of people have them
Half of all countries are democracies. But how many people enjoy democratic rights?
What you should know about this data
- To see what share of the world’s population lived in each regime, you can tick the ‘Relative’ box in the interactive visualization.
- For data on countries’ populations, we rely on combined data from Gapminder, the History database of the Global Environment (HYDE), and the United Nations Population Division.
- In this chart, we identify the political systems of countries with the Regimes of the World data by political scientists Anna Lührmann, Marcus Tannenberg, and Staffan Lindberg4, published by the Varieties of Democracy project.5
- RoW distinguishes four types of political systems: closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies.
Closed autocracy: citizens do not have the right to choose either the chief executive of the government or the legislature through multi-party elections
Electoral autocracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature through multi-party elections; but they lack some freedoms, such as the freedoms of association or expression that make the elections meaningful, free, and fair
Electoral democracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature in meaningful, free and fair, and multi-party elections
Liberal democracy: electoral democracy and citizens enjoy individual and minority rights, are equal before the law, and the actions of the executive are constrained by the legislative and the courts
- We use the RoW classification and V-Dem data but expand the years and countries covered and refine the coding rules, as explained in our technical article on the RoW data.
- We use the RoW data here, but there are several other leading approaches to measuring democracy, which sometimes classify countries differently. You can explore them in our Democracy Data Explorer.
Many democracies are less than a generation old. Dictatorship is far from a distant memory
Most electoral democracies are younger than the oldest people who live in them.
The chart shows that almost two dozen democracies are younger than 18 — as young as the children in these countries. Others are only as old as their young adults. This is based on data from Regimes of the World.
In these younger democracies, most people have experienced life under authoritarian rule, and older people lacked democratic political rights for most of their lives.
A larger group of countries have been electoral democracies for one to three generations. In these countries, children and young adults have only known life in a democracy, but their parents and grandparents have experienced non-democratic rule.
Only a few countries have been democratic for more than 90 years. In these places, democracy 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 even 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.
We have an article that provides more detail:
In most countries, democracy is a recent achievement. Dictatorship is far from a distant memory
How old are democracies across the world?
What you should know about this data
- In this chart, we identify the political systems of countries with the Regimes of the World data by political scientists Anna Lührmann, Marcus Tannenberg, and Staffan Lindberg4, published by the Varieties of Democracy project.5
- RoW distinguishes four types of political systems: closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies.
Closed autocracy: citizens do not have the right to choose either the chief executive of the government or the legislature through multi-party elections
Electoral autocracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature through multi-party elections; but they lack some freedoms, such as the freedoms of association or expression that make the elections meaningful, free, and fair
Electoral democracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature in meaningful, free and fair, and multi-party elections
Liberal democracy: electoral democracy and citizens enjoy individual and minority rights, are equal before the law, and the actions of the executive are constrained by the legislative and the courts
- We use the RoW classification and V-Dem data but expand the years and countries covered and refine the coding rules, as explained in our technical article on the RoW data.
- We use the RoW data here, but there are several other leading approaches to measuring democracy, which sometimes classify countries differently. You can explore them in our Democracy Data Explorer.
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.
We have an article that provides more detail and discusses the trends over time:
People around the world have gained democratic rights, but some have many more rights than others
How democratic have countries been across the world? And how big are the differences between them?
What you should know about this data
- In this chart, we rely on the Electoral Democracy Index by the Varieties of Democracy project5to measure democracy.
- The Electoral Democracy Index scores each country on a spectrum, with some countries being more democratic than others. Political systems with the following features are considered more democratic:
Elected political leaders: broad elections choose the chief executive and legislature
Comprehensive voting rights: all adult citizens have the legal right to vote in national elections
Free and fair elections: no election violence, government intimidation, fraud, large irregularities, and vote-buying
Freedom of association: parties and civil society organizations can form and operate freely
Freedom of expression: people can voice their views and the media can present different political perspectives
- We expand the years and countries covered by the V-Dem data as explained in our article on the data.
- We use the V-Dem data here, but there are several other leading approaches to measuring democracy, which sometimes score countries very differently. You can explore them in our Democracy Data Explorer.
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 2023, ERT identifies 42 that were autocratizing — close to an all-time high.
For a long time, the number of autocratizing countries was offset by democratizing ones. But since 2013, the number of countries that are becoming more autocratic has been higher.
The countries that are becoming less democratic are both eroding democracies and hardening autocracies.
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.
We have an article that provides more detail:
The world has recently become less democratic
Many more people have democratic rights than in the past. Some of this progress has recently been reversed.
What you should know about this data
- For data on which countries are becoming less or more democratic, we rely on data from the Episodes of Regime Transformation project.7
- We use their data to identify which countries are autocratizing, democratizing, and which countries are not clearly moving in either direction.8
- ERT seeks to strike a balance between large and small changes in how democratic countries are.9 It captures smaller changes in the level of democracy that fall short of regime change. At the same time, it only codes a country as autocratizing when there is a substantial decrease in its democracy score. This is because very small decreases may be fleeting and not indicate broader shifts towards less democracy, or overstate changes altogether because the measurement is uncertain.10 ERT also allows for temporary stagnation because autocratization may not happen abruptly in one year, but slowly over several years.11
- We use the ERT data here, but there are several other leading approaches to measuring democracy, which sometimes classify or score countries differently. You can explore them in our Democracy Data Explorer.
Explore Data on Democracy
This explorer seeks to make data on democracy easier to access and understand. It provides and explains data from eight leading democracy datasets: their main democracy measures, indicators of specific characteristics, and global and regional overviews. You can learn more about the approaches — and which democracy measure may be best to answer your questions — in our article explaining how researchers measure democracy:
Democracy data: how sources differ and when to use which one
There are many ways to classify and measure political systems. What approaches do different sources take? And when is which approach best?
Research & Writing
200 years ago, everyone lacked democratic rights. Now, billions of people have them
Half of all countries are democracies. But how many people enjoy democratic rights?
The world has recently become less democratic
Many more people have democratic rights than in the past. Some of this progress has recently been reversed.
Measuring Democracy
Interactive Charts on Democracy
Political regimeRegimes of the World
Electoral democracy indexV-Dem
Countries that are democracies and autocraciesRegimes of the World
People living in democracies and autocraciesRegimes of the World
Number of electoral democracies by ageRegimes of the World
Countries that are democratizing and autocratizingEpisodes of Regime Transformation
Distribution of electoral democracy indexV-Dem
Distribution of electoral democracy indexV-Dem, weighted by population
Liberal democracy indexV-Dem
Political regimeBoix et al.
Political regimeLexical Index
Age of electoral democracyRegimes of the World
Age of liberal democracyRegimes of the World
Child mortality rate vs. electoral democracy
Citizen satisfaction with democracy
Citizen support for democracy
Civil society participation indexV-Dem
Competitive electionsLexical Index
Countries that are democracies and autocraciesLexical Index
Countries that are democracies and autocraciesBTI
Countries that are democracies and non-democraciesBoix et al.
Countries that are democracies and non-democraciesEIU
Countries that are democratizing and autocratizingEpisodes of Regime Transformation, within regimes
Countries with universal right to vote
Deliberative democracy indexV-Dem
Deliberative political institutions indexV-Dem
Democracy indexPolity
Democracy indexEIU
Democracy index by source
Democratic featuresBTI
Direct popular voting indexV-Dem
Distribution of democracy indexEIU
Distribution of democratic features indexBTI
Distribution of liberal democracy indexV-Dem, weighted by population
Distribution of liberal democracy indexV-Dem
Egalitarian democracy indexV-Dem
Egalitarian political institutions indexV-Dem
Elections for government's chief executiveLexical Index
Elections for legislatureLexical Index
Electoral democracy indexV-Dem, weighted by population
Equal access to power indexV-Dem
Free and fair electionsRegimes of the World
Free and fair elections indexV-Dem
Free countries and territoriesFreedom House
Freedom of association indexV-Dem
Freedom of expression indexV-Dem
GDP per capita vs. electoral democracy index
Government effectiveness vs. liberal democracy
Human rights index vs. electoral democracy index
Judicial constraints on the executive index
Legislative constraints on the executive index
Liberal democracy indexV-Dem, weighted by population
Liberal political institutions index
Life expectancy vs. liberal democracy index
Number of liberal democracies by ageRegimes of the World
Participatory democracy indexV-Dem
Participatory political institutions indexV-Dem
People living in countries with universal right to vote
People living in democracies and autocraciesRegimes of the World, including ambiguous regimes
People living in democracies and autocraciesLexical Index
People living in democracies and non-democraciesBoix et al.
People living in democratizing and autocratizing countriesEpisodes of Regime Transformation
People living in democratizing and autocratizing countriesEpisodes of Regime Transformation, within regimes
Political centralization index
Political oppositionLexical Index
Political regimeRegimes of the World, including ambiguous regimes
Political regimeFreedom House, free countries
Political regimeBTI
Political regimeEpisodes of Regime Transformation
Political regimeEpisodes of Regime Transformation, within regimes
Political regime classification by source
Share of adult citizens who have the right to vote
Tax revenues vs. electoral democracy index
Universal right to voteLexical Index
Varieties of democracyV-Dem, weighted by population
Varieties of democracyV-Dem
Voter turnout of registered voters
Voter turnout of voting-age population
Women's political empowerment index vs. electoral democracy index
Countries that are democracies and autocraciesRegimes of the World, including ambiguous regimes
Countries that are long-standing electoral democraciesRegimes of the World
Countries that are long-standing liberal democraciesRegimes of the World
People living in long-standing electoral democraciesRegimes of the World
People living in long-standing liberal democraciesRegimes of the World
Endnotes
The United Kingdom and the United States were the only countries that could be classified as electoral autocracies, because its political leaders were chosen through elections, but citizens lacked additional freedoms to make those elections free and fair.
Examples are France and New Zealand.
Examples are Australia, Belgium, and Switzerland.
Lührmann, Anna, Marcus Tannenberg, and Staffan Lindberg. 2018. Regimes of the World (RoW): Opening New Avenues for the Comparative Study of Political Regimes. Politics and Governance 6(1): 60-77.
Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, David Altman, Fabio Angiolillo, Michael Bernhard, Cecilia Borella, Agnes Cornell, M. Steven Fish, Linnea Fox, Lisa Gastaldi, Haakon Gjerløw, Adam Glynn, Ana Good God, Sandra Grahn, Allen Hicken, Katrin Kinzelbach, Joshua Krusell, Kyle L. Marquardt, Kelly McMann, Valeriya Mechkova, Juraj Medzihorsky, Natalia Natsika, Anja Neundorf, Pamela Paxton, Daniel Pemstein, Josefine Pernes, Oskar Rydén, Johannes von Römer, Brigitte Seim, Rachel Sigman, Svend-Erik Skaaning, Jeffrey Staton, Aksel Sundström, Eitan Tzelgov, Yi-ting Wang, Tore Wig, Steven Wilson, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2024. "V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v14" Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. https://doi.org/10.23696/mcwt-fr58
RoW’s reclassification is the result of recent changes in the V-Dem data, which identify declines in the autonomy of the election management body, the freedom and fairness of elections, and especially the freedom of expression, the media, and civil society. You can read more in V-Dem’s 2021 annual report Autocratization Turns Viral.
Edgell, Amanda B., Seraphine F. Maerz, Laura Maxwell, Richard Morgan, Juraj Medzi- horsky, Matthew C. Wilson, Vanessa A. Boese, Sebastian Hellmeier, Jean Lachapelle, Patrik Lindenfors, Anna Lührmann, and Staffan I. Lindberg. (2024). Episodes of Regime Transformation Dataset (v14.0). Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. Available at: www.github.com/vdeminstitute/ert
Based on ERT, a country is autocratizing from when V-Dem’s electoral democracy index decreases by 0.01, until the score increases or remains unchanged for four years, and the total decrease between the start and end amounts to a decrease of at least 0.10. Democratizing countries are classified analogously. We exclude the few country years for which democratization and autocratization episodes happen to overlap. This chart shows how each country has been classified at the end of each year since 1900.
Seraphine Maerz, Amanda Edgell, Matthew Wilson, Sebastian Hellmeier, Staffan Lindberg. 2021. A Framework for Understanding Regime Transformation: Introducing the ERT Dataset. Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 113. University of Gothenburg.
This means, however, that some countries are not classified as autocratizing even though their score visibly declines. One example is the United States in the 2010s, whose decline between 2015 and 2020 fell just barely short of the ERT threshold.
Bermeo, Nancy. 2016. On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy 27(1): 5-19.
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Bastian Herre, Lucas Rodés-Guirao and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2013) - “Democracy” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/democracy' [Online Resource]BibTeX citation
@article{owid-democracy,
author = {Bastian Herre and Lucas Rodés-Guirao and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina},
title = {Democracy},
journal = {Our World in Data},
year = {2013},
note = {https://ourworldindata.org/democracy}
}
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