Here's the bad news: The erosion of democracy continues to advance around the world, according to the 2023 report from V-Dem, the independent research institute that seeks to measure the qualities of supposed democratic nations. A record 42 countries experienced democratic setbacks or the process V-Dem calls "autocratization," compared to 22 last year and just 13 in 2022. "The level of democracy enjoyed by the average world citizen in 2022 is back to 1986 levels," said Staffan Lindberg, director of the V-Dem Institute, in a press announcement. "This means that 72 percent of the world's population, 5.7 billion people, live under authoritarian rule." For the first time since 1995, Lindberg said, there are more "closed autocracies" (aka dictatorships) than genuine liberal democracies.
But that's not the whole story: V-Dem also detects a current of "defiance" over the past year. For the first time since the "third wave" of autocratization began, a number of countries have significantly reversed the trend, suggesting a clearer picture of how democracy can bounce back — which has potential application in the United States. Only two such countries were listed last year. Now there are eight: Bolivia, Moldova, Ecuador, the Maldives, North Macedonia, Slovenia, South Korea and Zambia.
