72% of the world’s population – 5.7 billion people – live in autocracies by 2022. Democracy has deteriorated in many regions. Asia-Pacific is now down to levels of 1978. Armenia, Greece, and Mauritius are democracies in steep decline.Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, are back to levels last seen around the end of the Cold War.
- A plurality – 44% of the world’s population, or 3.5 billion people – reside in electoral autocracies, which include populous countries such as India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, The Philippines, and Türkiye. Closed autocracies with sizeable populations include China, Iran, Myanmar, and Vietnam. This regime type accounts for 28% of the world’s population, or 2.2 billion people.
- more than twice as many – nine countries – have declined substantially: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, The Philippines, and Thailand.
- Disinformation, polarization, and autocratization reinforce each other. Top democratizers conversely reduce the spread of disinformation substantially, and to some extent also polarization.
- Drastic Changes in Last Ten Year. Freedom of Expression is deteriorating in 35 countries in 2022 – ten years ago it was only Government censorship of the media is worsening in 47 countries.Government repression of civil society organizations is worsening in 37 countries. Quality of elections is worsening in 30 countries.
