To the editor:
Life can feel disorienting these days. The news is lurching from one emergency to another, while our day-to-day lives go on. So it can be useful to look at the big picture. The Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) is an organization that specializes in the big picture. V-Dem is comprised of 4,200 scholars and experts in 202 countries that manage a global dataset tracking 600 attributes of democracy. They synthesize 32 million data points into a Liberal Democracy Index that tracks countries on a scale from most to least democratic. The scale, which runs from liberal democracy to closed autocracy, shows a worldwide shift towards autocracy. V-Dem’s 2026 Democracy Report describes the situation as “uncharted territory” saying “there have never been more countries autocratizing at the same time in the world as now.”
Especially concerning is the status of the United States. For the first time in over fifty years, the U.S. is not categorized as a liberal democracy, but instead has been reduced to an electoral democracy: one that has elections but lacks other indicators such as equality before the law, legislative restraint on the executive, and protection of civil rights. This change is happening extremely quickly, with Trump’s second term ushering in a “rapid and aggressive concentration of powers in the presidency.” In 2025 the U.S. declined on every single measure of democracy except for elections, which are only measured in election years. The report continues, “The speed at which American democracy is currently being dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.”
The good news is that it is possible to reverse this. 70% of recent autocratizations have shown signs of a U-turn where they increase democratic factors. But this can only happen if we understand what is happening and work together, persistently, to advocate for democracy and resist autocracy. V-Dem cites elections as “pivotal windows of opportunity” and the first after autocratic breakthrough as “decisive.”
When we act together, organize, and speak about the hope of a government by and for the people, we become the democratization that we want to see. It is up to us.
Find the full V-Dem Democracy Report at v-dem.net
Rachel Cole
Hardwick
