DWA 227 · Authoritarianism in the Age of Globalization · Week 1

The State of Democracy
2026

All findings from: V-Dem Institute, Democracy Report 2026: “Unraveling the Democratic Era?” (10th edition, March 2026)
32 million+ data points · 202 countries and territories, 1789–2025 · 4,200+ country experts · 600+ attributes of democracy

The headline

1978

“Democracy is back to 1978 levels for the average global citizen. The gains of the ‘third wave of democratization’, starting 1974 in Portugal, are almost eradicated.”

50+ yrs

Western Europe & North America: lowest level of democracy for the average citizen in over 50 years

−30%

global decline in population-weighted democracy from its 2003 peak

The world in 2025: 92 autocracies, 87 democracies

74%

of the world population — 6 billion people — live in autocracies

28% > 26%

more people live in closed autocracies (2.3 bn) than in all democracies combined (2.2 bn)

7%

live in liberal democracies (0.6 bn) — lowest in over 50 years

The vocabulary · V-Dem’s “Regimes of the World”

Four regime types, one ladder

Liberal democracy — free and fair elections plus rule of law: courts and legislatures that constrain the executive, and protected individual rights. (Where 7% of humanity lives.)

Electoral democracy — multiparty elections that are genuinely free and fair, with real freedoms of expression and association — but weaker checks on those who win. (Where V-Dem now places the USA.)

Electoral autocracy — elections are held, but the playing field is rigged: media, opposition, and courts tilted toward incumbents. The world’s most common regime type. (Russia, Türkiye — and India?) Is India an electoral autocracy? ▶

Closed autocracy — no multiparty elections for those who actually rule; opposition politics is shut out altogether. (China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea.)

The democracy/autocracy line: are multiparty elections free and fair? The liberal add-on: is the winner constrained?

“The Great Reversal”

“Almost all aspects of democracy register far-reaching declines during the last decade — a dramatic reversal compared to 2000.”
Torture is now increasingly used to suppress political opposition — 33 countries substantially degenerating in 2025.

Twenty years, two worlds

Share of world population living in…

The third wave of autocratization

44

countries autocratizing — nearly a quarter of the world’s nations

41%

of world population (3.4 bn) live in autocratizing countries — a record

39%

of world GDP — and 26% of world land area — is in autocratizing countries

“The world has never before seen as many countries autocratizing at the same time.” Research evidence: the current wave is “worse than the 1930s” in length, scope, and magnitude.
10 new autocratizers in 2025 — among them five European countries: Croatia, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the UK — plus the USA.
Most common tactics: media censorship (32 of 44 countries, 73%) and repression of civil society (30 countries, 68%).

In focus · autocratization in the USA

−24%

decline in the USA’s Liberal Democracy Index within one year

20th → 51st

USA’s world rank on the LDI, of 179 nations

1965

the year the USA’s level of democracy has fallen back to

“The USA loses its long-term status as a liberal democracy — for the first time in over 50 years.”
“The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.”
“Electoral components of democracy, however, remain stable — for now.”

Legislative Constraints: largest single-year drop in US history, lowest in over 100 years · Freedom of Expression: lowest since the end of WWII · Civil Rights: back to late-1960s levels

The other side of the ledger

18

countries democratizing — home to just 5% of world population

3

new democratizers in 2025 — Botswana, Guatemala, Mauritius — all U-turns

70%

success rate for autocracies that start a democratization episode

“The world is facing 15 years of stagnation for democratization.”
U-turns — reversals of autocratization — are the main good news: Mauritius, Poland, and Thailand lead in magnitude of improvement; South Korea “defended its democracy in 2025, following the failed 2024 martial law attempt.”
“Yet Zambia illustrates how fragile U-turns can be” — backsliding again while technically still qualifying as a U-turn.
Media freedom and deliberation are improving in more than 60% of all democratizing countries.

Established democracies in trouble

Autocratization now affects seven EU member states — and two of the EU’s main allies, the UK and the USA.
In Western Europe & North America, the three autocratizers — Italy, the UK, and the USA — account for 59% of the region’s population.
“Four of the five world’s most populous countries are autocracies (India, China, Indonesia, and Pakistan), and the USA is rapidly autocratizing.”
Watchlist 2026 — potential autocratizers: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Namibia, Portugal, Russia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Vanuatu. Potential democratizers: Chad, Gabon, South Korea.

Why this is a course about globalization too

“The ‘center of gravity’ for human experience and global governance has shifted heavily toward authoritarianism. Many large, populous, and economically powerful countries are autocratizing. Several of these countries possess the economic and political weight to reshape international organizations, norms, and trade, effectively altering the global order.” V-Dem Institute, Democracy Report 2026, p. 8

Globalization in 2026 · I

Trade: record volumes, rising walls

$35 tn

global trade in 2025 — an all-time record (goods + services)

4.6% → 1.9%

world merchandise trade volume growth, 2025 → WTO forecast for 2026

11.8%

average effective US tariff rate (Apr 2026) — highest since the early 1940s

Restrictive import measures now cover $4.6 trillion of trade — 19.4% of world imports, up 6.9 points in a year.
Rewiring, not collapse: US–China trade fell ~$165 bn in 2025 — but the US replaced about two-thirds of the gap with alternative suppliers; ASEAN exports +14%.
The Busan truce (Trump–Xi, Oct 30, 2025) cut average US tariffs on China from 57% to 47%; the pause runs to Nov 10, 2026.

Globalization in 2026 · II

China: the pivot of the trading system

$1.2 tn

China’s 2025 trade surplus — the first ever above $1 trillion

14.6%

of world merchandise exports — the largest exporter ($3.77 tn in 2025, +6.1%)

45%

of global manufacturing output by 2030, on UNIDO’s forecast (US: 11%)

Redirection, 2025: exports to the US −20% · trade with Africa +18.4% · ASEAN trade above $1.02 tn · Belt & Road partners now take 51.9% of China’s trade.
Leverage: rare-earth export controls suspended for one year under the truce (to Nov 10, 2026); US chip controls continue — Nvidia’s H200 cleared for China with a 25% surcharge (Jan 2026).

“We must practice true multilateralism, and enhance the authority and effectiveness of the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core.” Xi Jinping, APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, Gyeongju, October 31, 2025

The competitor · the “China model” · I

Growth without democratization

26×

China’s GDP, 1995 → 2025: $0.74 tn → $19.5 tn (current US$) — from 2.4% to 16.5% of world GDP

$613 → $13,862

GDP per capita, 1995 → 2025 — a 23-fold rise in a single generation

800 mn

people lifted out of extreme poverty since 1980 — close to three-quarters of the world’s total reduction

“The central issue is the fact that the People’s Republic of China can no longer act as a beacon for illiberal forces around the world, whether they be guerrillas in some Asian jungle or middle class students in Paris.” Fukuyama, “The End of History?” (1989) — Thursday’s reading

The competitor · the “China model” · II

The global system’s central node is now an autocracy

145 / 205

economies traded more with China than with the US in 2023 — about 70%

112

of them traded more than twice as much with China — up from 92 in 2018

For Week 1: Fukuyama’s mechanism ran through markets — trade was supposed to pull liberalism along. If the system’s hub is a one-party state, which way does the arrow point?
Is the “China model” a rival idea with universal aspirations (the only thing that would falsify Fukuyama) or a growth record that cannot be replicated elsewhere? (→ the Week 10 debate)

▶ Fukuyama on the Chinese model (Cornell, 2014)