A Global Democratic Reversal

In 2026, the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden released the 10th edition of the “Democracy Report.” The title directly asks, “Unraveling the Democratic Era?” The answer the report gives is disturbing: Worldwide, levels of democracy have already regressed to those of 1978. Half a century of democratization has been nearly wiped out.

Even more astonishing is that the countries leading the decline are not those that have already been regarded as authoritarian but rather are in the Western democratic world itself. Democratic indicators in democracies such as the U.S., the U.K. and Italy have all fallen together. During the first year of Donald Trump’s second term in office, the U.S. deteriorated from a “liberal democracy” to an “electoral democracy.” Its democracy score fell to the same level it was in 1965, and globally, America’s standing plummeted from 20th place to 51st.

In one year, the democracy index in the U.S. fell 24%. The speed of this decline not only outpaced that of countries in democratic decline, such as the U.K. and Italy, but was also several times faster than that led by Viktor Orban in Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. It is an “unbelievable exception” that a large, wealthy Western power would dismantle its own democratic system at a near-coup pace. The U.S. is no longer a beacon of light — it is the first domino to fall in the democratic world.

The democratic backsliding of this era has a notable new characteristic: Under the guise of legitimacy, leaders obtain power through elections and then gradually dismantle the systems, thus making it difficult for them to retain power.

This is precisely what political scientists call “expansion of executive power.” Congress becomes merely a figurehead, the courts are controlled, the media is threatened and civil society is labeled subversive.

The report points out that the U.S. is experiencing “a rapid and aggressive concentration of powers,” weakened legislative oversight and declining civil liberties and media freedom. "The Republican-controlled Congress seems to have abdicated its constitutional role in favor of the executive branch, ceding significant legislative, fiscal, and oversight powers,” while the Trump administration is “unilaterally canceling or reallocating federal funding,” effectively taking over the “power of the purse” granted to Congress by the Constitution.

The pressure on the judiciary is equally concerning. Trump has not only “filed impeachment resolutions and misconduct complaints against district court judges who ruled against” him, but has also used executive orders to punish large law firms that defended his political opponents. He does not need to impose martial law; the shell of democracy remains, but it is already hollow.

The situation in Taiwan is equally alarming. Is the government using regulatory mechanisms to silence unfriendly political voices? The instrumentalization of the judiciary equally deserves attention.

The pressure online is omnipresent. Organized groups on social media platforms launch collective attacks on those who criticize the ruling party. At the end of 2025, the Executive Yuan decided on an amendment to the National Security Act that makes “publicly promoting, proposing or supporting war against Taiwan” punishable by a fine of up to almost U.S.$32,000. Scholars question whether this will lead to a concentration of executive power and have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

The V-Dem report particularly points out that freedom of speech is the democratic pillar most severely harmed. Over the past 25 years, it has also been the most frequent target of authoritarian leaders. Government censorship of the media has become the “favored weapon of dictators and ambitious individuals.” Moreover, self-censorship by the media — “a preemptive measure to avoid direct censorship or persecution” — is becoming increasingly serious in nearly 40 countries, including the U.S.

Political polarization turns opponents into enemies or traitors. Fake news on social media makes reaching a consensus on facts increasingly difficult. Pro-government forces online exclude dissent from public discussion. If these phenomena continue to worsen, democracy will become only a shell of elections without the soul of free discussion.

Democracy has never been static. It must be continually and actively chosen and guarded by each generation of citizens. Transitioning from a democracy to an autocracy is easy; transitioning from an autocracy to a democracy is difficult. This hard-won democracy deserves to be cherished and protected.