Varieties of democracy: how backsliding is measured

Working English version. The Spanish edition is the reference text. This translation is published for reach and will be revised before the final launch.

The third wave of autocratization

During the third wave of democratisation, the dominant question was how countries left authoritarianism. Contemporary scholarship asks the opposite: how a democracy is dismantled from within, without a military coup and without a visible constitutional rupture.

V-Dem documents a sustained decline in global democratic levels. In its 2026 edition, the project estimates that 74% of the world population lives in autocracies and that 44 countries are undergoing autocratization. The figure is not a verdict on the future, but it is a description of the starting point.

Unlike classic twentieth-century coups, contemporary autocratization is incremental and institutional. It happens from within the system, driven by elected leaders who erode press freedom, judicial independence and electoral fairness. Law becomes the vehicle of de-democratisation.

Data note. The charts in the previous version were illustrative. This piece keeps the conceptual argument and refers to the V-Dem report and codebook. The 1975-2024 series will be added as a visualization with documented data, version and method.

What V-Dem measures

V-Dem does not publish a single democracy index. It publishes hundreds of expert-coded variables aggregated into five main indices. The difference matters: a country can hold competitive elections and, at the same time, have a weak liberal democracy.

Index	Concept	Main components
Electoral democracy (polyarchy)	Whether rulers respond to citizens through competitive, clean and plural elections.	Freedom of association, freedom of expression, clean elections, inclusive suffrage.
Liberal democracy	Whether the electoral principle is combined with individual rights and limits on the executive.	Judicial independence, equality before the law, constitutional checks, civil liberties.
Participatory democracy	Whether citizens participate beyond voting.	Direct democracy, civil society, local and regional participation.
Deliberative democracy	Whether decisions are publicly justified and debated.	Reasoned justification, consultation with diverse actors, respect for the opposition.
Egalitarian democracy	Whether material inequalities prevent the effective exercise of political power.	Resource distribution, equal access to power, protection against plutocratic capture.

The electoral democracy index is the minimum condition. The liberal index is the one that suffers the greatest erosion in processes of illiberalism. The participatory, deliberative and egalitarian indices reveal dimensions that an average of elections cannot capture.

The RoW taxonomy

The Regimes of the World (RoW) classification by Lührmann, Tannenberg and Lindberg combines electoral integrity with constitutional liberties to assign each country to one of four categories:

• Closed autocracy. No multiparty executive or legislative elections, or elections without real competition.
• Electoral autocracy. Multiparty elections exist, but with severe violations of press freedom, association and competitive fairness.
• Electoral democracy. Elections are free and plural, but consolidated elements of the rule of law or individual liberties are missing.
• Liberal democracy. High-quality elections, protected civil liberties, an independent judiciary and institutional checks.

The boundary between electoral autocracy and electoral democracy is one of the most debated. It is not a labelling difference: it changes which accountability mechanisms are expected and which type of deterioration is observable.

Five cases to see the mechanism

The cases are not a representative sample. They show different trajectories and force the mechanism to be specified.

Case	Trajectory	What to watch
Hungary	Electoral autocracy inside the European Union.	Media capture, electoral reform and control of judicial checks.
India	Degradation of a large-scale electoral democracy.	Press restrictions, pressure on civil society and selective use of the law.
Tunisia	Extinction of the main success of the Arab Spring.	Presidential concentration, dismantling of checks and shrinking electoral competition.
Uruguay	Institutional resilience in Latin America.	Consolidated parties, an autonomous electoral administration and low perceived corruption.
Venezuela	Transition from electoral democracy to closed autocracy.	Judicial capture, electoral control and selective repression.

The useful comparison is not a ranking from more to less democratic. It is asking which institution changed first, which actors allowed it and what resistance cost.

The profile comparator

A radar of the five dimensions reveals asymmetries that an aggregate index hides. A broad, balanced polygon suggests homogeneous checks and balances. A polygon that is high on elections but low on deliberation or liberal rights describes a hybrid regime or an electoral autocracy.

The comparator is not an automatic classification tool. It is a way to visualise a profile and formulate questions about it.

The limits

V-Dem indices are aggregates. They summarise a lot of information and, like any aggregate, lose nuance. Three precautions are essential:

1. A change of 0.1 is not a collapse. Look at the trajectory, the starting point and the components that move.
2. Measurement has error. The indices rely on expert coding and models; uncertainty should accompany the figure.
3. Association is not causation. Two dimensions deteriorating together does not prove that one causes the other. Sequence and mechanism require additional evidence.

What to watch

To follow the deterioration of a democracy, look first at freedom of expression and judicial independence, then at electoral fairness and, in parallel, at the capacity of civil society to organise. The sequence is not a universal law, but it is a useful guide to where to look before the regime changes category.

The next piece in the series explains how to read a V-Dem chart without confusing a change of scale with a change of regime.

References

1. V-Dem Institute (2026). Democracy Report 2026: Unraveling the Democratic Era? University of Gothenburg.
2. Coppedge, M. et al. (2026). V-Dem Codebook v16. Varieties of Democracy Project.
3. Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I. (2019). A third wave of autocratization is here: What is new about it? Democratization, 26(7).
4. Lührmann, A., Tannenberg, M., & Lindberg, S. I. (2018). Regimes of the World (RoW): Opening new avenues for the comparative study of political regimes. Politics and Governance, 6(1).
5. Dahl, R. A. (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. Yale University Press.
6. Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1).

Related data

• V-Dem Dataset v16

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