Figure This
Sometimes all you have to do is look at the figures. The Democracy Report 2026 of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project at the University of Gothenburg tells us this:
Democracy is back to 1978 levels for the average global citizen; the level of democracy for the average citizen of Western Europe and North America is at its lowest in over 50 years, mainly because of the US. The world currently has 92 autocracies and 87 democracies. 74% of the world population (6 billion people) live in autocracies. Only 7% of the world population (0.6. billion) live in democracies. 44 countries are declining in freedom of expression, torture is increasingly being used to suppress political opposition – 33 countries are ‘substantially degenerating’ on this metric. Seven EU states, the UK and the US are affected by autocratization.
The US is the most dismaying case. Democracy has fallen back to pre-Civil Rights era levels because of ‘rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency’ and the policies pursued. The speed with which US democracy is being dismantled is ‘unprecedented in modern history’. Legislative constraints are the worst affected factor, ‘losing one third of its value in 2025 and reaching its lowest level in over 100 years’. US civil rights and equality before the law, and freedom of expression, are at their lowest levels in 60 years.
V-Dem uses the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) to measure relative democritization and autocritization. The core indices are electoral, liberal, egalitarian, participatory and deliberative. V-Dem produces a global dataset with 32 million data points for 202 countries between 1789 and 2025. Over 4,200 experts worldwide contribute measurements on 600 different attributes of democracy.
Here is the full report: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf
For those of us in the UK and the US this backsliding is shaming and shameful. Look at Figure 1 in the report: both countries are in the pale grey region of the bar, between 0.5 and 0.6 on a scale in which 1 represents full democracy. Most EU countries, Canada, Australia, Japan and Brazil do better, Scandinavia and Switzerland best of all.
An interesting point: Scandinavian countries and Switzerland have small populations and high levels of taxation. That’s a big clue. In those countries taxes are regarded as a pooling of community resources for investment in people – health, education – and the appurtenances of a decent and civilised society. In the UK and especially US taxes are viewed grudgingly and suspiciously, in the US the assumption being that the good things of life should be reserved for private purchase, to hell with those who can’t afford them, while in the UK people want high quality public services but don’t want to pay for them, and then moan like a drain when they don’t get them.
Go figure.
From the mid 70s of the last century for several decades, democratisation increased in the world, ‘the third wave of democratisation’; many new nations - many post-colonial nations and (briefly) Russia - seeking to model themselves on (or appear to do so) the successful and wealthy Western liberal democracies ascendent after the Second World War. The peak was reached about the year 2000, Freedom House then estimating that 63% of all states were democratic. If one wishes to see a blueprint for the fall-back in this process, look at the way the nomenklatura in Russia reclaimed control (detailed in my For the People), hollowing out the institutions so that a cosmetic appearance of electoral democracy remained while the levers of power reverted to their firm grip. Project 2025 in Trump’s US is the same sort of thing.
Civil liberties and the rule of law are the gems of a democratic order, along with the principle that government rests on the express consent of the people fairly and properly registered in free and fair elections. ‘Free and fair’ includes no big money warping the process, no lying by politicians, no irresponsible spinning and distorting by partisan media - but above all responsible use of brains and votes by voters themselves, thinking beyond self-interest. The results of this year’s V-Dem survey are a big wake-up call to us all to get back on track - and that means all of us, shoulders to the wheel.
It took all history to get our civil liberties and the rule of law (see my Towards the Light: blood flowed to get the vote). The illegitimi are ever at work to take our rights and liberties away so they can pocket more. Fight back.
The V-Dem data is devastating and should be required reading. The finding that the UK sits between 0.5 and 0.6 on the Liberal Democracy Index - behind Canada, Australia, Japan, and most of the EU - is not a surprise to anyone who has watched the last two decades of British politics, but seeing it quantified by 4,200 independent experts across 32 million data points makes it harder to dismiss.
Where I'd push further is the question of mechanism. You identify what is happening - democratic backsliding - and where the best outcomes exist - Scandinavia, Switzerland. But the crucial question is why those countries produce better outcomes, and the answer isn't primarily taxation. It's institutional design. Proportional representation. Consensus governance. Codified constitutional protections. Social partnership models. Low corruption embedded in structural accountability, not just cultural expectation.
Britain doesn't lack civic spirit. Nine million people volunteered during the pandemic. What it lacks is the institutional architecture that converts civic spirit into democratic outcomes. The party system intercepts that energy and converts it into tribal loyalty instead. Until the machinery changes, "shoulders to the wheel" just means pushing harder on a wheel that's been disconnected from the axle.
Fascinating! At the risk of sounding illiberal, Section 5 of the V-Dem report is compulsory reading! Australia too, disturbingly, is now on the move - witness the results of the South Australia election!