Elections have been central to International IDEA’s mandate and activities ever since the Institute was founded in 1995. At the start of this year, as countries that together account for half of the world’s population prepared to go to the polls, we resolved to redouble our focus on the need to support electoral integrity. We are doing this by developing the capacity of election authorities and other partners to manage risk; by convening dialogues to exchange practices and innovations; by leveraging our voice through a global communications and advocacy campaign to protect elections; and, of course, by generating and disseminating knowledge about the trends we are seeing and the lessons to be drawn.
Hence, this report focuses on the challenges facing electoral authorities and systems. In particular, the 2024 Global State of Democracy report emphasizes how procedural and substantive pressures influence public perceptions of elections, and how those perceptions in turn shape democratic outcomes. This report thus builds upon the contributions of International IDEA’s Perceptions of Democracy Survey report, released earlier in 2024, by shifting the level of inquiry for democracy assessment out of the ivory tower and into the public square.
Our report outlines the mounting threats to the quality and robustness of elections, a pattern highlighted by a dramatic 10-point fall in average turnout over the past 15 years but reflected in different ways and to different degrees in every region of the world. And the report links this trend to another growing phenomenon in elections globally—the refusal of losers to concede. Between 2020 and 2024, in almost 20 per cent of elections, a losing candidate or party rejected the election outcome.
This relationship between electoral quality (both real and perceived) and a smooth transfer of power is a two-way street. On the one hand, rising pressures on elections from disinformation and polarization, among other variables, expand the space for defeated parties and candidates to spuriously deny or reject the results. On the other hand, when outcomes are contested with vigour and often with vitriol, it can further raise public doubts about the validity and even the value of democratic elections.
Yet, as this super-cycle year has reinforced, elections remain the single best opportunity to end democratic backsliding and turn the tide in democracy’s favour. As shown recently in places as diverse as Brazil, France, The Gambia, Guatemala, India, Poland and Zambia, elections retain a remarkable ability to surprise the experts and, in some cases, strengthen democracy in the face of adversity.
As this super-cycle year has reinforced, elections remain the single best opportunity to end democratic backsliding and turn the tide in democracy’s favour.
The success of democracy depends on many things, but it becomes utterly impossible if elections fail. And since democracy is an ideal that must be believed if it is to be true, a failure of perception is as serious as a failure of substance. To keep democracy alive, we must preserve public trust in electoral pathways to political change. That’s why this report, its findings and, above all, its recommendations are so timely and so vital.