Don's Home > Politics > International Ranking Authoritarianism
last updated 24 Aug 2025

Introduction:
It seems like I've been hearing more about new authoritarian leaders over the last couple of years.
That may be a news bias because these governments are more newsworthy, but I thought I'd take a look.

There are 6 or 7 or more organizations tracking democracies and they have different takes on the trend.

The Economist Intelligence Unit: Democracy Index 2022:
Shows the Democracy index has declined slightly in all regions from 2006 to 2020.
The average has gone from 5.52 to 5.29 (scores range from 1 - 10)
In 2022 North America and Western Europe the highest at 8.37 and 8.36
The Middle East and North Africa went from 3.53 to 3.34.
See Democracy Index below.

Freedom House:

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Fredom in the World 2020
This report rates countries on political rights and civil liberties, with scores ranging from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free). You can find the latest rankings and detailed country reports on their website:

Countries with net declines in their aggregate Freedom in the World score have outnumbered those with gains.
for the past 14 years.

Democracy Matrix | University of Wurzburg. shows that over the last 120 years Authoritarianism has declined from 80% to 35% of countries, but has remained fairly constant over the last 15 years.
However, Deficient Democracy fraction has increased over the last 20 years.

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) shows that the share of the world living in democracies from 2004-2024 had gone from 51% to 28% and the share in autocracies has gone from 49% to 72%.

Source: From Democratic Decline to Authoritarian Aggression | Freedom House

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The Economist Intelligence Unit: Democracy Index 2022:
Shows the Democracy index has declined slightly in all regions from 2006 to 2022.
The average has gone from 5.52 to 5.29 (scores range from 1 - 10)
In 2022 North America and Western Europe the highest at 8.37 and 8.36
The Middle East and North Africa was lowest at 3.34.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which ranks countries into 4 categories, Full Democracies, Flawed Democracies, Hybrid Regimes and Authoritarian Regimes, downgraded the US from a Full Democracy to a Flawed Democracy in 2016. It's score had been dropping for some time because of dwindling trust in government, elected representatives and political parties and had nothing to do with Trump's election.

There are several prominent indices that rank countries based on the level of authoritarianism in their governments. However, it's important to remember that these rankings are based on diverse methodologies and criteria, and can sometimes be subjective. Therefore, it's crucial to consider multiple sources and understand the underlying factors used in each ranking before drawing conclusions.