Perspective 159. Is Democracy in Decline?

The chattering classes (including myself) have long bemoaned growing threats to democracy. Does evidence suggest that democracy is in fact weaker today?

Yes. All the reputable measures of democracy record a decline in democratic norms. But not just for the last few years; world-wide democracy has been in decline since soon after the turn of the century.

In perspective, Freedom House has registered 19 straight years of declining freedom in the nations of the world. The number of states rated as unfree or only partly free has grown from 103 to 122. The Economist Intelligence Unit calculates that only 6.6 percent of the world’s population live in “full democracies,” against 12.5 percent in 2014. Among the nations that have fallen from “full democracies” to “flawed democracies” are Israel and the United States.

Israel does well on measures of political rights, covering such areas as the electoral system; Freedom House gives it a score of 34 of a possible 40 points. But on civil liberties it is weaker and declining, 39 of 60 in the latest rating.

Among measures that have threatened Israeli democracy are legislation to weaken civic organizations that oppose official policy, increase in administrative detentions following outbreak of the war with Hamas, and the 2018 Nation-State Basic Law that challenged the status of Palestinian citizens.

But the biggest threat was the move, before the war, to rein in the independence of the Israeli judiciary, long a strong force in preserving the rule of law. Some measures -- suspension of judicial appointments and eliminating the standard of “reasonableness” in court rulings -- are already in place. But others, on hold during the war, may be revived and would thoroughly politicize the judiciary. Further erosion of democracy hangs in the balance.

The United States has scored lower than countries we consider comparable mainly because of gerrymandering, de facto barriers to voting, and the influence of money in politics. All of this worsened in more recent years. Between 2010 and 2020 Freedom House downgraded the U.S. from 94 to 83 (on a scale of 100). The Economist, as noted, demoted us from a “full” to a “flawed” democracy. The V-Dem Index, perhaps the most sophisticated of all, noted a sharp decline in 2016-2020.

What will next year’s data say about American democracy? Dread the worst.