Box 2.4.Popular and expert assessments of Freedom of Expression

High-level patterns reveal that the plight of democracy continues. In 2023, 82 countries (47 per cent) suffered a decline in at least one second-level factor of democratic performance, compared with their own performance five years prior. In contrast, 52 countries advanced in at least one factor over that time period (30 per cent). As Figure 2.1 illustrates, the balance between progress and decline shifted in 2017 and has not recovered.

Change was seen in all regions (see Figure 2.2), though the most declines occurred in Africa and Asia and the Pacific, followed by Europe and the Americas. Advances were most prevalent in West Asia, followed by the Americas and Africa (see Figure 2.4 for a breakdown of the factors that saw changes in each region).

Declines at the factor level have been most concentrated in the categories of Representation and Rights (see Figure 0.1 for an overview of how we measure democratic performance). As illustrated in Figure 2.3, the factors that have declined the most within Representation were Credible Elections and Effective Parliament, while Economic Equality, Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press saw the largest decreases within Rights. Together, these declines raise concerns in the context of an elections super-cycle year. As almost 3 billion voters are going to the polls, the weakening of these particular factors raises questions about the fundamental structures of democratic systems: declines cast doubt on the extent to which people have the civic and economic space to cast informed votes as well as on the ability of elected representatives to counter the power of the executive and keep democratic systems balanced.

Declines in Representation and Rights

Examples of the declines in Representation and Rights can been seen around the world (see Figure 2.4). In Africa, coups have clear impacts on both Representation and Rights, especially as leaders come to power in the absence of polls, and many then suspend rights in order to maintain their new grip on power. Some coup leaders have tried to justify their actions by citing growing, unaddressed violence and insecurity (Mcallister 2023). In the Americas, on the other hand, many countries continue to show relatively strong performance in Representation. Yet, some leaders have used their power to severely restrict rights—ostensibly to address violence but with clear impacts on democratic processes. Beyond what has been seen in other countries in the region, in El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has systematically derailed democratic checks on power by weakening term limits, starving the opposition of funding, intimidating the press and instituting a state of emergency that has allowed him to severely restrict human rights (Meléndez-Sánchez 2024).

In Asia and the Pacific, declines in the Representation and Rights subfactors have occurred in multiple countries going to the polls this year, including India, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Korea and Sri Lanka. In many of the countries in that region, elites have moved to restrict opposition parties and limit transparency in order to tilt the playing field. In some cases, of course, recent elections could mark a turning point. In India, for example, the judiciary helped reopen a constricted space by allowing senior opposition leaders to participate in the polls (despite pending court cases).

Advances in Rights and Rule of Law

The very democratic institutions that are suffering in some places have become stronger elsewhere. As Figure 2.5 illustrates, the breadth of progress has consistently narrowed over the past three decades, but it has not halted altogether. The figure also shows that the areas where progress is being made have changed over time. In 2023, where there were advances, they occurred most frequently in factors in the categories of Rule of Law and Rights—Absence of Corruption, Freedom of Expression, Economic Equality and Access to Justice. While the 18 countries that have improved in Absence of Corruption present a hopeful sign, it is important to note that several remain low-performing (Burundi, Dominican Republic, Iraq and Kazakhstan) or home to more broadly troubling contexts (Afghanistan, Haiti, Saudi Arabia and Syria). Research has shown that while corruption is low where the level of democracy is high, it is high where the level of democracy is modest and low where democracy is absent (McMann et al. 2020). It is therefore not surprising that negative trends in democratic performance (in countries already at low levels) are sometimes accompanied by declines in the level of corruption.

In Europe, a push for certain countries’ accession to the European Union in the aftermath of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has prompted progress in Access to Justice, Economic Equality and Freedom of Expression, including in Albania, Kosovo and Moldova. Asia and the Pacific has also seen important gains here, including in smaller countries such as Fiji, the Maldives, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu. Gains in these areas have also been evident in Africa and West Asia, where countries such as Burundi, The Gambia, Somalia and Zambia have seen progress.

Signs of change

The current context of radical uncertainty is likely to persist at least into the near future, but a few events could signal the direction of change. As polls predicted, the far right made significant gains in some countries during the European Parliament elections, raising questions related to the future direction for democracy support across the continent and further afield (Bounds and Foy 2024).

The much-watched 2024 Indian election was also a pivotal moment in setting the agenda for change. In a surprise showing, opposition parties won enough seats in the lower house of parliament to prevent the ruling party from maintaining an outright majority (Krishnan 2024). Though the Bharatiya Janata Party was able to form a government with its coalition partners, the opposition will likely be a more forceful voice, thus strengthening checks and balances. A large part of the success of the election was due to the maturity of Indian voters, supported by the work of countervailing institutions, including the courts, political parties and the electoral management body (EMB), which helped facilitate participation and a healthy contest. In the USA, which has suffered declines in Civil Liberties and which has had to grapple with questions surrounding its electoral process, elections in November 2024 will set the tone for international democracy-focused programming in many parts of the world.

At the same time, smaller signals of change provide hope for long-term advances. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first female prime minister may be a harbinger of other gender-equality advances, and all eyes will be on Namibia, whose November elections may result in Africa’s second elected female president. In countries such as Mozambique and Senegal, the emergence of a new generation of political leaders is seen with excitement, particularly given the extreme gap between the demographics of society and the demographics of current heads of state and government in Africa. The significant advances in the Pacific Island countries noted are important reminders not to neglect smaller countries, which can also be showcases of democratization.

The significant advances in the Pacific Island countries noted are important reminders not to neglect smaller countries, which can also be showcases of democratization.

In the GSoD Indices, Representation is an aggregate measure of the extent of representative democracy, building from component measures of credible elections, inclusive suffrage, freedom to organize through political parties, the effectiveness of the legislature and the practice of democracy at the local level.

Representation captures many of the things that people associate with democracy, such as elections, parties and legislatures. Global trends in this area turned negative more than a decade ago, and 2023 was the worst year we have yet observed. The situation continues to evolve as new technology and new approaches to politics generate ever greater levels of uncertainty—not about outcomes (which must be uncertain), but about rules, practices, standards of conduct and acceptance of legitimate outcomes. Elections are also affected by the global context of radical uncertainty through developments such as threats of foreign interference, disinformation and the potential uses of generative AI in campaigns. One good example of a response to these developments was a code of conduct that political parties proactively signed in the lead-up to elections for the European Parliament, committing to actions that can mitigate many of these issues (see Box 2.1).

Despite these challenges, elections retain their promise as a means to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power between political parties and ideologies. The 2023 elections in Poland, a country then performing far below its best in many factors of democracy, illustrate this promise: elections remain a vital way to halt negative trends in democratic development. Poland now faces a time of transition; the coming years will determine whether or not the democratic contraction will be substantially reversed (Bloom and Hudson 2023).

Declines in the factors of Representation were most common in mid-range-performing countries, with Africa, the Americas, and Asia and the Pacific particularly affected. The single worst area of decline is Credible Elections in Africa, where 21 countries (40 per cent) performed at a significantly worse level than they had five years before (in 2018) (see Figure 2.7). The only area where more countries were making progress than were falling behind was in Effective Parliament in Europe (five countries were advancing while four were declining).

Credible Elections

The Credible Elections index aggregates indicators that measure the extent to which elections for national representative political office are free from irregularities, such as flaws and biases in the voter registration and campaign processes, voter intimidation and fraudulent counting.

The GSoD index of Credible Elections is a key indicator to consider in evaluating the quality of Representation around the world, especially in this election super-cycle year. In our most recent data (covering up to the end of 2023), we find that 39 countries (22.5 per cent of those we cover) performed worse in this area than they had in 2018. Countries with declines were found at all levels of performance, from high performers such as Germany and New Zealand, to low performers such as Belarus and Nicaragua.

Among the 39 countries with a significant decline in the Credible Elections index, 38 saw increasing levels of government intimidation, 33 saw higher levels of irregularities in the electoral process, 30 saw a decrease in EMB autonomy, and 29 saw a decline in EMB capacity (Coppedge et al. 2024). The combination of government intimidation of opposition candidates and attacks on the institutions that guarantee free and fair electoral processes (EMBs and courts) is a potent threat to credible elections. What these data do not cover is the extent to which political parties and candidates dispute electoral outcomes, the level of disinformation around elections and the effects these have on public faith in electoral processes. We take up some of these matters in Part 2 of this report, using new data to identify specific weaknesses and provide policy recommendations that can help reverse the negative trend in Credible Elections.

Amid a global pattern of decline in Credible Elections, a few countries stand out. Past elections in Serbia have been tainted by excessive incumbency advantages, but the 2023 election was notably worse in several respects. For the first time, the level of electoral manipulation extended to voting day itself (Milačić 2024), and election observers reported instances of vote buying and ballot-box stuffing (OSCE/ODIHR 2024).

For different reasons, Guatemala also stands apart from the trends. It is an ambiguous case, in which there has been a significant decline in the Credible Elections index, but the final outcome of the 2023 election was that the person who received the most votes (Bernardo Arévalo) took office (Schwartz 2024). One of the main features of the Guatemalan process that illustrates a global trend is the judicialization of elections. Prosecutions and court challenges were a regular feature of this electoral process. President Arévalo and his party faced investigation by prosecutors, attempts to have his candidacy invalidated and later attempts to prevent him from taking office. Ultimately, a combination of popular mobilization, international pressure and the use of writs of amparo by Arévalo’s supporters ensured that he would be sworn in as president (for more information on writs of amparo and their application in Guatemala see Kurtenbach, Reder and Ripplinger 2024).

The 2024 election in Senegal highlighted a few important pressure points in the country’s democracy: (a) the independence of trial courts and prosecutors; (b) the independence of the Constitutional Council and the National Autonomous Electoral Commission; and (c) respect for democratic norms on the part of the head of state.

Uncertainty about the election began early on with Macky Sall’s flirtation with running for a third term as president (including a long-running refusal to publicly rule it out), despite the apparent conflict with the term limits established by the Constitution (Négoce 2023b). Candidate eligibility became a live political issue after 2021, when the third-place finisher in the 2019 presidential election, Ousmane Sonko, was charged with crimes for which a conviction would have disqualified him from running for president (Africanews and AFP 2023). Sonko was eventually convicted twice in 2023, and his supporters frequently clashed with police at pivotal moments in his prosecutions, leading to several deaths (France 24 2021; Négoce 2023a).

On 20 January 2024, following a presidential decree setting the election date for 25 February, the Constitutional Council published the list of candidates for the presidency. The list was the longest in Senegalese history, with a full 20 candidates. However, two potential candidates who had been expected to mount serious challenges to the ruling Benno Bokk Yaakaar coalition’s candidate, Prime Minister Amadou Ba, were excluded from the list—Karim Wade (excluded on the basis of evidence that he had not renounced his French citizenship in time) and Mr Sonko (Le Monde and AFP 2024). In a restive political context, President Sall announced on 3 February that the elections would not take place as planned (France 24 2024a). He referenced the ongoing controversy over candidate eligibility as a reason for the delay. However, it was not clear that he had the constitutional authority to act in this manner.

On 6 February, in a chaotic session that involved the forcible removal of opposition lawmakers, the National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment allowing a delay in holding elections and set a new election date of 15 December (Berthaud-Clair 2024). Crucially, the Constitutional Council declared the postponement unconstitutional and urged authorities to hold elections as soon as possible (France 24 2024b). Amid the political turmoil that followed the postponement, however, parliament passed an amnesty law proposed by President Sall. Although the law enabled the release of hundreds of opposition members, including Mr Sonko and his party’s new presidential candidate, Bassirou Faye, international and civil society organizations (CSOs) warned that the law could grant impunity to the officials accused of having used excessive force against protesters (Ngom and Ollivier 2024; Human Rights Watch 2024b).

On 24 March Senegal elected Mr Faye as Senegal’s next president (at 44, the youngest elected president in Africa) in a competitive election that was deemed free and fair by international observers and had a turnout of 61.3 per cent (Idrac 2024). In the end, the election is remembered not only for its tumultuous lead-up but also for the resilience of the Senegalese people (notably its youth), the judicial system that defended democratic principles amid a very serious institutional crisis and the independence demonstrated by the EMB.

Free Political Parties

Given the ways in which some incumbents may seek to remain in power by restricting the space in which opposition parties can operate, particular attention should also be paid to the Free Political Parties index. Only five countries improved from 2018 to 2023, while 23 declined (13 per cent of the countries covered). Most of the countries with declines are in the low-performing range (below 0.4/1), as already-dire situations worsened further in places such as Afghanistan, Belarus, Myanmar and Nicaragua. However, there were also declines in this index in mid-range-performing countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala.

As democracy has been aphoristically defined as ‘a system in which parties lose elections’ (Przeworski 1991: 10), declines in Free Political Parties indicate fundamental challenges to the kind of free competition necessary for the people to control decision making and decision makers. For example, Comoros began to see declines in the indicators of Free Political Parties in 2018. That year saw both a constitutional reform that ended a system that rotated the presidency across the major islands that make up the country and arrests of opposition politicians (Massey 2020). Since then, there have been sharp declines in several of the indicators aggregated in the Free Political Parties index, such as multiparty elections, opposition party autonomy, the right to organize parties and barriers to party formation (Coppedge et al. 2024; Freedom House 2024; Skaaning, Gerring and Bartusevičius 2015). Both the 2020 and 2024 elections were marred by accusations of fraud and by opposition boycotts (Massey 2020; Reuters 2024b). The kind of boycotts and legal challenges now common in Comoros are taken up in a broader context in Part 2 of this report.

Effective Parliament

Threats to institutions that check executive power were a major focus in last year’s report (International IDEA 2023i), and declines in one of the key indices in that analysis, Effective Parliament, continued in 2023. Now, 32 countries (18 per cent) have declined relative to 2018, while only 12 have improved. One third of the declining countries were cases where coups d’état or other catastrophes deprived the country of a functioning parliament altogether (including in Afghanistan and Haiti). Another half of these countries are mid-range performers, including Botswana, Greece and Nepal. The remaining five countries are (or recently were) in the high-performing range: Cabo Verde, Japan, Peru, Portugal and South Korea.

The decline in Effective Parliament in Greece can be traced in part to a spyware scandal that implicated the government in targeting journalists and politicians, including an opposition party leader, a government minister and the chief of the armed services, with advanced spyware (Amnesty International 2023). In 2024 the European Parliament adopted a resolution expressing ‘grave concerns about very serious threats to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights’ in Greece, referring specifically to spyware, media freedom, police violence and checks and balances. The European Parliament also flagged concerns about the alleged lack of impartiality in a parliamentary inquiry into the Tempi train disaster, which resulted in dozens of deaths in February 2023. There are also questions related to the Greek Parliament’s ‘refusal to conduct an investigation into two former ministers for transport’ in relation to the disaster, despite a request by the EU public prosecutor (European Parliament 2024).

As radical uncertainty forces leaders to grapple with new crises and contexts, many attempt to control the situation by restricting people’s rights.

As radical uncertainty forces leaders to grapple with new crises and contexts, many attempt to control the situation by restricting people’s rights. Compared with five years earlier, declines were most common in Economic Equality and Freedom of Expression, impacting 38 countries each (22 per cent). Advances were most common in Freedom of Expression, where 17 countries (10 per cent) saw progress. Gains in Access to Justice and Economic Equality are similarly notable, impacting 16 countries each (8 per cent) (see Figure 2.8).

Most of the countries that declined at the aggregate level were already low-performing (Afghanistan, Belarus, El Salvador and Myanmar). Only two countries experienced gains (the Maldives and Somalia). It is difficult to comprehend the declines in Rights without considering violent conflict, the occurrence of which drives declines in this category by limiting people’s ability to safely exercise their rights and often by prompting authorities to impose restrictions on rights. In extreme contexts such as low-performing Afghanistan, Myanmar (State Administration Council) and Sudan and mid-range-performing Israel, for example, authorities have restricted the rights of journalists to operate freely (or at all), as well as people’s right to assemble and move about (Endeshaw 2023; Sharon 2023).

In multiple Latin American countries, public security challenges have recently been met with heavy-handed state responses, which have—in some cases—included allegations of human rights abuses (Roy and Cheatham 2023). El Salvador is one of the clearest examples. While its homicide rate is now the second-lowest in the western hemisphere (after Canada), the policies that have facilitated this drop in violence (such as amendments to the law that undermine the presumption of innocence and the right to a defence) have led to hundreds of enforced disappearances, thousands of arbitrary detentions and hundreds of deaths in state custody (Amnesty International 2024; Flores-Macías 2024).

In mid-range-performing Ecuador, increasing public insecurity has also been met with harsh state responses. While the homicide rate has dropped, there have been allegations of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and a lack of due process. At the same time, extortion and kidnapping have been on the rise even as homicide declines (Human Rights Watch 2024c). Public insecurity has also occurred, however, in situations that are not marked by severe violence. In the USA, for instance, a spate of fast-spreading, student-led pro-Palestinian encampments and protests were often met with police force and arrests. Some of these events were marred by anti-Semitic incidents. The use of excessive police force was described by some advocacy organizations as ‘quashing’ the right to protest (Amnesty International USA 2024; International IDEA 2024i).

Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press

The Freedom of Expression subfactor refers to the right to openly discuss political issues and express political opinions outside the mass media and to considerations of the broader information environment. The Freedom of the Press subfactor measures the extent to which the news media are diverse, honest, critical of the government and free from censorship (on the part of the government or self-imposed); it also measures independence of the media.

Some of the steepest declines in Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press were in countries marked by closed and insecure contexts, including Afghanistan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Myanmar and Nicaragua. In other higher-performing contexts, though, these rights also came under strain. Mid-range-performing Greece has struggled with academic freedom in recent years, exemplified by a law that allows for scrutiny of students displaying banners and that established a police force to help maintain order on university campuses. The law was controversial, sparking multiple protests and concerns about the undermining of free speech (CIVICUS 2021; Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs 2021). These developments have been compounded by a longer-term decline in Freedom of the Press due to the murder of a crime reporter, threats against journalists and spyware scandals (Media Freedom Rapid Response 2024). Other high-performing countries in Europe, including Italy and Slovakia, have also seen executive attempts to exert pressure on the media (Mapping Media Freedom 2023; Reporters without Borders 2024).

In Asia, mid-range-performing Kyrgyzstan stands out for a spate of recent moves that harm Freedom of Expression. These include the government’s shutdown of an investigative journalism website, a slew of police raids on journalists’ homes and newsrooms, and a ‘foreign agents’ law that impacts press freedom groups (International IDEA 2023g; International IDEA 2024a; Committee to Protect Journalists 2024b). In mid-range-performing South Korea, the government conducted raids on media outlets that reported on the president’s alleged involvement in corruption. Press freedom organizations condemned the raids, demanding a stop to the intimidation and harassment of journalists (International Federation of Journalists 2023).

Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Press are especially critical in electoral processes, guaranteeing that voters have the information and space to learn about and engage in electoral activities. In the months before the 2024 Mexican election, concerns expressed by many observers about press freedoms were tied to phenomena such as the leaking of the personal information of hundreds of journalists who had registered with the office of the Mexican presidency and the president’s disclosure on national television of the personal cell-phone number of a journalist for The New York Times (Committee to Protect Journalists 2024a; International IDEA 2024b; Romero 2024). The highest-profile example of this pattern took place in Guatemala in the lead-up to the 2023 election and included targeted prosecutions of the leadership of the El Periodico newspaper, moves that critics say were taken in retaliation for the paper’s negative coverage of the former administration (International IDEA 2023d).

Economic Equality

The Economic Equality index aggregates expert-coded measures of the extent to which people are excluded from political processes on the basis of economic factors, along with observational data about economic inequality.

While many of the countries that suffered from the steepest drops were low-performing (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the Central African Republic, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Qatar), mid-range performers were also impacted (Canada, France, Iceland, Mauritius, Romania and the USA). In Iceland, which declined from high-performing to mid-range-performing in the past year, a main issue has been the distribution of power by socio-economic position. In 2023 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance published its sixth report on Iceland, noting that while there were commendable improvements, there were also ongoing problems with hate speech against asylum seekers and immigrants, a lack of systematic data collection on racist or LGBTQIA+ hate crime, bullying against LGBTQIA+ students and a lack of awareness of the country’s anti-discrimination legal framework. Such discrimination may impact access to employment and broader economic prosperity (ECRI 2023). In Canada, which is also mid-range-performing (having dropped from high performance between 2019 and 2020), declines may be due to reports that the wealth gap between high- and low-income households increased at the fastest pace ever in the first quarter of 2023. The wealth held by the top 20 per cent accounted for more than two thirds of net worth, compared with 2.7 per cent held by the bottom 40 per cent (Statistics Canada 2023). Despite these challenges, it is important to note that these countries continue to be home to strong democratic institutions. In particular, Mauritius remains one of the best performing countries in Africa.

Access to Justice

The Access to Justice factor denotes the extent to which the legal system is fair (i.e. citizens are not subject to arbitrary arrest or detention and have the right to be under the jurisdiction of and to seek redress from competent, independent and impartial tribunals without undue delay).

Over the past five years, the number of declines in Access to Justice was almost double the number of advances, mirroring popular perceptions about problems with judicial institutions (see Box 2.5). In its 10th report on Norway, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women praised the country for the progress made to close the gender gap in education and employment. At the same time, it raised questions about the strict evidentiary requirements for rape prosecutions and about how changes to a law on compensation for crimes might disadvantage victims of violence and abuse. These issues reflect declines related to access to justice for women, which have not recovered since a drop in 2020. Notably, however, high-performing Norway is considering a new legal aid scheme as well as a new consent-based provision on rape (United Nations Office at Geneva 2023). In Iceland, political scandals, such as the invalid sale of Íslandsbanki and the lack of charges brought against the company Samherji—accused of foreign bribery—have undermined judicial accountability (Iceland Monitor 2023; Transparency International 2024). Senegal’s decline was seen in the unlawful arrests of opposition figures in 2023, an example of how Senegalese politicians can wield substantial influence over the courts (Human Rights Watch 2024a). In that case, however, the courts were able to act as countervailing institutions and were an important force in assuring a level playing field.

At the same time, the advances are also worth noting. In Chile, authorities took the initial steps to reform the national police and established a police reform commission (Human Rights Watch 2023a). Albania’s advances follow ambitious reform of the justice sector, which has included legislative and institutional reforms as well as the creation of a free legal aid system and efforts to strengthen the rule of law (UNDP Albania n.d.; FIIAPP 2023).

Gender Equality

While Gender Equality has not made notable improvements globally since 2018 (eight countries saw advances, and five saw declines), there have been important markers of progress. These include the passage of a bill to implement a gender quota for the lower house of parliament and state assemblies in India and a landmark bill that would guarantee extra seats for women in provincial assemblies in the Solomon Islands (Brechenmacher 2023; RNZ 2024; Solomon Islands Government 2024).

Mexico is also a noteworthy case, as it sets a high standard in terms of the range of mechanisms it has in place to ensure women’s political participation. In 2024 voters chose Claudia Sheinbaum to be Mexico’s first woman president. Additionally, at the time of the writing of this report, the heads of the Supreme Court and the Electoral Tribunal were both women, as were the presidents of the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies and the National Electoral Institute (INE). Building on previous amendments that had gradually introduced gender parity, a groundbreaking 2019 constitutional reform established ‘parity in everything’ as a permanent principle in all branches of government to guarantee women’s access to politics, government and the administration of justice (Ravel 2024; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023).

Although high levels of violence, particularly against women, have been an issue in this election year (INEGI 2022; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023; Harrison-Cripps 2024; Calderón 2024), strong legislation and policies have facilitated the monitoring and sanctioning of gender-based political violence, including through a National Registry of Sanctioned Persons for Violence against Women in Politics and the INE’s collaboration with platforms regarding digital-based political violence (INE 2024; Meta 2024).

In the GSoD Indices, Rule of Law is an aggregate measure that includes assessments of the independence of the judiciary from government influence, the extent to which public administrators use their offices for personal gain, how predictable enforcement of the law is and the degree to which people are free from political violence.

Rule of Law performance around the world has been mixed in the last five years, with more countries declining than advancing. Overall, aggregate gains in Rule of Law have been most broadly distributed across Africa, followed by the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and West Asia. The majority of declining countries are found in Europe.

The spotlight has been on the courts, as Judicial Independence and Predictable Enforcement metrics have suffered the most broadly. Absence of Corruption scores, on the other hand, have advanced the most. Notably, though, the degree of change in Absence of Corruption scores has generally been small, and most improving countries are low-range or mid-range in performance levels. Moldova experienced the steepest growth in Absence of Corruption, thanks to new policies that protect whistleblowers and clarify the competencies of anti-corruption bodies (European Commission 2023a). The USA also stands out as the only high-performing country to have seen advances, which were due to improvements in relation to measures of executive embezzlement and bribery. One example is the passage of the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act, described as ‘the most important foreign bribery law in half a century’ (Transparency International U.S. 2023). This law makes ‘it a crime for a foreign official … to demand or accept a bribe from an American or an American company, or from any person while in the territory of the United States, in connection with obtaining or retaining business’ (Transparency International U.S. 2023). The law helps fight the demand side of bribery, invigorating the Department of Justice’s global anti-corruption efforts, which previously focused only on the supply side. In addition, a court found former President Donald Trump guilty of civil fraud for artificially inflating his net worth in exchange for more favourable loan terms. He was fined millions of dollars (Bromwich and Protess 2024). Other countries that have seen advances in Absence of Corruption include Angola, Bulgaria, Kenya and the Maldives.

Judicial Independence and Predictable Enforcement

The Judicial Independence factor denotes the extent to which the courts are not subject to undue influence from the other branches of government, especially the executive. The Predictable Enforcement factor denotes the extent to which the executive and public officials enforce laws in a predictable manner.

The worst declines in Judicial Independence and Predictable Enforcement have taken place in low-performing countries such as Afghanistan, El Salvador, Myanmar and Tunisia. Tunisia’s struggles were exemplified by the arbitrary dismissal of 49 magistrates (i.e. judges and prosecutors) in 2022 and a refusal to comply with a court order for their reinstatement. Instead, in 2023 the Minister of Justice opened criminal cases against the judges (Human Rights Watch 2023b). Predictable Enforcement has also suffered due to the arrests of critics of the president (Reuters 2024a).

The courts took centre stage in the context of elections. Sometimes, the courts are co-opted to support particular candidates or ensure certain electoral results. This pattern was apparent in the Americas, where prosecutors and the courts were used to try to weaken judicial independence and oversight in Guatemala (International IDEA 2024e) and Peru (ICG 2024). In Guatemala, prosecutors asked a court to strip then-President-elect Arévalo of his immunity, suggesting, on the basis of questionable evidence, that the election results could be nullified because of irregularities. The Organization of American States characterized such prosecutorial moves as a coup attempt (El País 2023; OAS 2023). In countries such as Indonesia and Thailand (International IDEA 2024c), constitutional courts were used to further leaders’ specific agendas related to elections. In the case of Indonesia, the Constitutional Court ruled that candidates under the required age of 40 could run for the office of president or vice-president as long as they had held elected regional office. The decision allowed the former president’s son to be a vice-presidential candidate in the 2024 general elections, and critics alleged that this was the former president’s way of retaining influence (Widianto and Teresia 2023).

At the same time, other courts have acted to uphold the integrity of elections. In India (International IDEA 2023f), Mexico (International IDEA 2023e), Pakistan (International IDEA 2023h) and Sri Lanka (International IDEA 2023b), the courts defended electoral integrity through rulings that upheld opposition candidates’ rights, including the right to free speech, the independence of EMBs and the election calendar. India stands out in this regard, as its Supreme Court issued a ruling that affirmed the importance of an equal playing field in the run-up to elections. The Court’s ruling allowed a senior opposition leader to contest the 2024 general election after a previous court judgment had sanctioned him for defamation of the prime minister. The Court ruled again in 2024 to grant the temporary release on bail of another key opposition leader so that he could participate in elections (The Wire 2024). In Part 2 of this report, we highlight the pivotal roles courts play in the peaceful resolution of election disputes.

Other countries in Asia and the Pacific have also seen significant improvements in Judicial Independence, including Fiji, the Maldives and Uzbekistan. Mongolia is also notable. In 2023 lawmakers introduced reforms (related to the appointment, tenure and removal of judges, among other issues) that will strengthen the independence of the Constitutional Court.

Important progress has also been made in European countries incentivized by the prospect of EU integration. In Ukraine, for instance, the European Commission noted a transparent and merit-based selection process for the Constitutional Court and the resumption of disciplinary proceedings against judges, among other things (European Commission 2023c). Reforms in Moldova also contributed to stronger vetting of judges and prosecutors (European Commission 2023b). Poland also stands out for reforms that strengthen judicial independence, especially by reforming the disciplinary regime for judges (European Commission 2024). Indeed, Rule of Law concerns have remained at the top of the EU’s agenda, exemplified by the convening of the EU General Affairs Council in April 2024 by Belgium, which held the Presidency of the European Council at the time. The General Affairs Council discussed a set of five concrete recommendations and 42 specific actions to strengthen aspects of the rule of law (Brasseur, Pachta and Grigolo 2024).

One of the most notable examples of gains in Predictable Enforcement took place in Fiji, where the legislature took firm steps to bring to account former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who had come to power through a coup and then ruled (including by winning two elections) for 16 years (until 2022). After Bainimarama criticized the president for supporting the newly elected government, Fiji’s Parliament suspended him from the legislature for three years (International IDEA 2023c). In another case, Bainimarama was sentenced to one year in prison for perverting the course of justice when he instructed the police not to investigate allegations of graft at a university (Nataro 2024). Another notable example is Brazil, where the courts banned former President Jair Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030, when he will be 75 years old, for making baseless claims against the country’s electronic voting system (Plummer 2023).

The one area of democratic practice relatively untouched by the larger negative trend is Participation. As noted in the 2023 Global State of Democracy report (International IDEA 2023i), Participation sometimes remains quite strong even when other indicators of democratic health are at a low ebb. The contrast with the other categories of democratic performance here touches both levels and trends. As illustrated in Figure 2.10, while there are now more countries experiencing declines in the factors of Participation than are improving, the number of countries with declines is far lower than for the other categories discussed above. In 2023 only five countries (3 per cent of those covered) had experienced significant declines in Civic Engagement.

Electoral Participation denotes the extent to which citizens vote in national legislative and (if applicable) executive elections, measured as the percentage of the voting-age population that cast a ballot in the election.

Electoral Participation is a key area of interest in this year’s report. Trends here are difficult to assess globally, as each country has its own unique characteristics that contribute to turnout, and the issue is further complicated by compulsory voting in some countries. That said, global averages have a great deal of inertia, and the movement we see at this level is noteworthy. The average for Electoral Participation across the 173 countries covered by the GSoD Indices (measured as the percentage of the voting-age population who voted) declined from 65.2 per cent in 2008 to 55.5 per cent in 2023 (see Figure 1.1).

This decline has occurred despite many innovations around the world (especially since the Covid-19 pandemic) aimed at making electoral processes more accessible. For example, South Korea lowered the minimum age to vote from 19 to 18 in 2019 (), while Fiji lowered the minimum age to vote in municipal elections from 21 to 18 (Kate 2023). This is a developing trend globally, with other recent examples including discussions about reducing the voting age in Cyprus and Lithuania (municipal elections) to 16 (Cleaver 2024; Zdanytė 2024), and a court ruling in New Zealand that found the age requirement of 18 to be discriminatory (Davies 2022).

Innovations in ballot access are also being tried. South Korea provides another example here: through the early voting period, anyone can vote at any polling station in the country within or outside the constituency of registration without a specific reason to do so (중앙선거관리위원회 [National Election Commission] 2023; KBS 2024). After two decades of declining participation, voter turnout in South Korea improved (to 66 per cent) in 2020 and sustained that level in 2024 (International IDEA n.d.a). However, special voting arrangements (SVAs) such as those developed in South Korea cannot be expected to significantly increase turnout in most other cases, as the relative inconvenience of voting explains only a small part of the choice not to vote (Barrat et al. 2023).

Measured in terms of the percentage of the voting-age population that participates in elections, turnout varies widely around the world (see Figure 2.11). Countries with persistently low turnout include Kuwait (averaging 17 per cent over the past two decades), Côte d’Ivoire (23 per cent), Morocco (32 per cent) and The Gambia (32 per cent). Many countries with high average turnout have compulsory voting, but among those that do not are Malta (averaging 91 per cent over the past two decades), Indonesia (81 per cent), Sweden (81 per cent) and Timor-Leste (79 per cent). There is considerable variation across regions in terms of the trends in Electoral Participation, though the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe all had similar levels in 2023. The trends in every region are negative (though less so in Asia and the Pacific), and there was notably low turnout in 2023, including in Tunisia (10.6 per cent of the voting-age population), Nigeria (20.6 per cent), Switzerland (36.1 per cent) and Cyprus (38.0 per cent) (International IDEA n.d.a).

Civil Society

The Civil Society index aggregates indicators that measure the extent to which organized, voluntary, self-generating and autonomous social life is institutionally possible.

A vibrant associational life is a vital support to democracy. In addition to the related indices of Free Political Parties and Freedom of Association and Assembly, we assess the quality of the environment in which CSOs may operate in the Civil Society index. As noted above, declines in this index are not widespread. However, the declines in Civil Society we observed from 2018 to 2023 took place (for the most part) in contexts that were already very challenging and where authoritarian practices had become further entrenched. The countries with the largest declines in that period were Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia and Tunisia.

Uganda had the smallest decline among those where the trend was significant, but developments there illustrate themes that are common in many similarly affected countries. Since 2020 the government has shut down some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and harassed others (International Federation for Human Rights 2021). Areas of conflict include civil society groups’ efforts to monitor environmental protection and to offer support to the LGBTQIA+ community (Horne 2023; Nyeko 2022). Uganda is a challenging context for democracy already, and these declines will further constrain the space for CSOs.

Slovenia stands out when it comes to progress, with CIVICUS (2023) pointing to new initiatives to promote increased dialogue and cooperation between the government and civil society, specifically relating to migration policy and public broadcasting. The European Civic Forum and partners also reported a more open environment for civil society. The national NGO fund has issued new calls for proposals, in contrast to a previous restriction of funding for civil society. Accountability is also being pursued in the wake of attacks against certain activists. For example, authorities are prosecuting a case in which civil society activists were physically attacked and faced online threats (European Civic Forum and Civic Space Watch 2023).

Up next