hellomister

The State of Democracy

The Global State of Democracy (2025) from International IDEA contains the story of the state of democracy across the world. Over the past fifty years, some countries have risen from dictatorships to thriving democratic states. Others have shown dramatic decline due to failed democratic institutions or civil war. Democracy depends on strong representation, the protection of civil rights, the rule of law, and active citizenry, beyond the election cycle. The charts below allow you to explore which countries have shown the highest increases and decreases across democratic measures over time.

Biggest increases
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Largest decreases
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Scores are 0–1 (higher = more democratic). Tap bars or dots for details. A selection of sub-measures shown. Source: International IDEA Global State of Democracy Indices v9.

Too big to fail? Established democracies are under pressure too

While the most dramatic declines tend to occur in already-fragile states, established democracies like the United States are not immune. Long considered a democratic exemplar, there has been measurable erosion across key indicators, from press freedom and judicial independence to civil liberties and credible elections.

United States

United States OECD average
The Rights score for the United States in 2024 is almost identical to what it was in 1975. Decades of steady improvement were followed by a sharp reversal from 2016 to 2020. Rule of law shows a similar pattern, peaking around 0.83 in 2010 before dropping to 0.65 in 2020, its lowest point. This data set only goes to 2024, so the next results could be more dramatic.
Democracy closer to home

How does Australia compare? The chart below shows scores across all four democracy attributes and their sub-measures in Australia.

Australia

Australia OECD average
Australia's overall democratic health remains strong and overall higher than the OECD average, but the data reveals a decades-long erosion in civic participation. The decline in civil society and civic engagement scores, driven in part by falling union membership and reduced community organisation activity, shows a lack of participation in democracy for Australians between election cycles.

Union membership has fallen from around 50% of workers in the 1970s to under 15% today, one of the sharpest declines of any comparable country. Unions were not just about wages; they were a key mechanism for civic participation and collective action. As membership fell, so did a whole infrastructure of democratic engagement.

Despite compulsory voting, electoral participation scores have also gradually declined, likely reflecting falling enrolment rates, rising informal votes, and youth participation gaps rather than turnout itself, which remains high by global standards.

About this project

This page was conceived and designed by me. The analytical framework, selecting which measures to explore and visualise, how to structure the narrative, and what stories the data shows us, was developed by me. Page layout and visualisation design were created in Figma by me before being passed to Claude (Anthropic) for technical development and then iterated on. Data aggregation and calculations were performed by Claude and verified by me.


Data is drawn from the International IDEA Global State of Democracy Indices v9 (2025), covering 203 countries from 1975 to 2024. Scores range from 0 to 1. A score of 0 reflects IDEA's assessment that a measure is entirely absent, not a data gap. Regional aggregates have been excluded from country rankings.


This page represents my own analysis and does not represent the views of International IDEA or any other organisation. As it was co-created with an AI tool, and while I have done everything to check data accuracy, please go to the source data and report for verification.

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