International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Report 2023 provides an update, looking primarily at changes between 2017 and 2022, and specifically examines the role of counterveiling institutions in what have been the most important recent global and regional advances and declines in key indicators of democracy.

A finales de 2022 el mundo se encuentra atrapado bajo el peso de una multitude de viejos y nuevos problemas. Las causas de la inestabilidad política y económica son innumerables, entre ellas el alza de los precios de los alimentos y la energía, el incremento de la inflación y una inminente recesión. Estos fenómenos se producen en un contexto inestable caracterizado por el persistente cambio climático, desigualdades a largo plazo sin resolver, la pandemia de la COVID-19, el descenso del nivel de vida y la guerra de agresión rusa en Ucrania.

The Covid-19 pandemic initially broke out in the Asia and the Pacific region in late 2019, with the first cases in Wuhan, China. The pandemic has served as a magnifier of pre-existing democratic strengths and weaknesses within governing systems around Asia and the Pacific. In the majority of cases, the region’s hybrid and authoritarian regimes tightened their grip on society in response to the pandemic. Quality of democracy continued to decline in number of region’s democracies.

Recent declines in democracy have undermined some of the remarkable progress made in Africa over the past three decades, although bright spots remain. The Covid-19 pandemic, though seemingly less damaging to public health than elsewhere in the world, has added pressure on governance, rights, and social inequality. The report also covers the Middle East and North Africa which is one of the least democratic regions in the world. 

For more than a decade, a majority of Europe’s established democracies have seen the quality of their democracies stagnate—or even decline—rather than improve. Some show the clear erosion of democratic processes and fundamental rights; several have deteriorated to the point where they can hardly be qualified as democracies any longer. The arrival of the Covid-19 global health crisis has added to the strain. With sufficient democratic safeguards still in place, it is likely that the continent’s consolidated democracies will emerge largely intact from the pandemic.

The number of democracies in the Americas remains the same as two years ago despite the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, most of the democracies in the region demonstrated great resilience in the face of the pandemic. Parliaments, the judiciary and the media of most democracies in the region managed to adapt and continue to exercise their control functions, even in the midst of numerous restrictions that hampered their work.