Autocracies Are Growing. An Expert Wonders if the U.S. Might be Next.

A report estimates there were more global autocracies than democracies in 2024. Its lead author is worried about the way the American winds are blowing under Donald Trump.

       Key Takeaways:There were more autocracies than democracies around the world last year, an analysis shows.The number of people living in “autocratizing” countries comprises 40% of the world’s population.President Donald Trump’s early actions and ‘disregard of rule of law’ are ‘extremely worrying,’ the V-Dem Institute’s founding director says.

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                   Is democracy on the decline? One research institution says not only is the answer to that question “yes,” but that the decline has been happening for years – and the so-called democratic recession is deepening.The world in 2024 had more autocracies – meaning governments with at the very least “insufficient” levels of democratic freedoms, such as freedom of expression and association and free and fair elections – than democracies for the first time in more than two decades, according to a recent report from the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute. In total, 45 countries were “autocratizing” last year – an increase from 42 that were moving away from more democracy in 2023. That amounts to more than 3 billion people, or 40% of the world’s population.Data used in V-Dem’s analysis – which relies upon thousands of experts and more than 600 indicators assessing concepts such as government censorship, media bias and autonomy for opposition parties – only covers events until the end of 2024. But its researchers still included a whole section dedicated to the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has tested the limits of executive branch authority over the course of

• In fact, if trends described by the authors continue throughout 2025, the United States’ government regime would “definitely” be reclassified in next year’s annual “Democracy Report,” says Staffan Lindberg, an author and editor of the report, founding director of the V-Dem Institute and a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

  “Normally, these things – over the past 25 years – play out over up to 10 years before democracy is sort of done away with,” Lindberg says. “The Trump administration was just unleashing all of it at the same time, more or less.”