In its new Democracy Index 2025, made available this week, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) says that global democracy has stopped worsening after eight consecutive years of decline, noting instead “one of the biggest increases” of their global index since 2012 by 0.02 points.
The report covers 167 countries and territories and finds that almost three quarters either improved their score from 2024 to 2025 or remained unchanged. The EIU stresses that the United States is a major exception, with democracy there deteriorating further after Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025.
Overall, the EIU’s classification shows a modest shift toward democracy in 2025: the number of full and flawed democracies increased from 77 to 80, while the number of hybrid and authoritarian regimes fell from 90 to 87. Of the seven countries that changed regime category in 2025, five moved in a more democratic direction and two moved backward. France rejoined the full democracies, while Romania, Malawi, Senegal and Paraguay improved to flawed democracies. Moldova slipped into the hybrid category, and Angola became authoritarian.
According to the report, the global picture is one of resilience at the top and stagnation or fragility elsewhere. Full democracies remain highly stable, as do authoritarian regimes at the bottom of the index. The EIU argues that in countries where democratic institutions are weak or absent, reforms remain difficult to achieve and sustain.
In the context of other recent assessments, the EIU’s findings appear less bleak. While Freedom House reported a twentieth consecutive year of global freedom decline and V-Dem said democracy had fallen back to around 1978 levels, the EIU identifies a stabilization. The open question is “whether this pause marks a genuine inflection point, or merely an interlude”, the report notes.
Decline of the United States stands out
The report singles out the United States as the most prominent negative case. Its score fell by 0.2 points to 7.65, pushing it down six places to 34th in the global ranking and deeper into the category of flawed democracies, where it has remained since 2016. Canada moved in the opposite direction, improving by almost 0.4 points to 9.08 and rising to 9th place.
The EIU attributes the US decline mainly to worsening scores for the functioning of government and civil liberties. It points to staff cuts and politically motivated dismissals across the civil service, investigations into possible legal violations by the executive, pardons for participants in the January 2021 Capitol attack, and what it describes as the extraordinary use of federal law enforcement against specific ethnic and racial groups without probable cause.
Globally, the biggest deteriorations in 2025 were recorded in India (-0.33), Philippines (-0.33), Georgia (-0.34), Pakistan (-0.41), Nepal (-0.59) and Guinea-Bissau (-0.66).
Latin America rebounds, Asia keeps sliding
According to the report, “many regions have seen the end of democratic decline” in the previous year. The most notable improvement came in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the EIU says nine consecutive years of decline came to an end with an overall rise from 5.61 to 5.71 points. More than half of the countries in the region improved, and Bolivia (+1.12 points) was highlighted due to the country’s first free and fair elections in nearly two decades and a peaceful transition of power. Paraguay also moved from hybrid regime to flawed democracy.
Western Europe, still the world’s highest-scoring region, also registered a slight improvement, with its regional average rising from 8.38 to 8.43. France moved back from flawed democracy to full democracy, and Denmark climbed from seventh to third place globally.
By contrast, Asia and Australasia continued a six year regional decline, with the average score slipping from 5.31 to 5.27. The EIU says the sharpest setbacks were concentrated in South Asia. Nepal saw the steepest drop in the region, followed by Pakistan, the Philippines, India and Bangladesh. The main drivers were declines in civil liberties and the functioning of government.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia also declined for a third consecutive year. Georgia and Ukraine registered significant setbacks, while Romania improved enough to return from hybrid regime to flawed democracy.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the overall score remained unchanged at 4.00, but this masked substantial turbulence. The EIU notes that non democratic systems still account for 85 percent of the region, and that military takeovers in Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar contributed to some of the steepest score drops globally. Gabon, however, recorded the largest improvement in the entire index with an increase of 1.31 points.
Political participation rises, but institutions lag behind
A central theme of the report is the rise of political participation, especially among younger people. The EIU points to youth-led protest movements in countries such as Nepal, Kenya and Madagascar as signs of growing pressure for democratic change. But it warns that participation alone is not enough. Without reforms in civil liberties, eleactoral processes and governance, rising engagement could lead not to democratic consolidation but to frustration and instability.
