Democratization

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State of the world 2021: autocratization changing

its nature?

Vanessa A. Boese, Martin Lundstedt, Kelly Morrison, Yuko Sato & Staffan I.
Lindberg

To cite this article: Vanessa A. Boese, Martin Lundstedt, Kelly Morrison, Yuko Sato & Staffan I.
Lindberg (2022) State of the world 2021: autocratization changing its nature?, Democratization,
29:6, 983-1013, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2022.2069751

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DEMOCRATIZATION
2022, VOL. 29, NO. 6, 983–1013
https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2022.2069751

RESEARCH ARTICLE

State of the world 2021: autocratization changing its

nature?
Vanessa A. Boese , Martin Lundstedt , Kelly Morrison , Yuko Sato and
Staffan I. Lindberg
Department of Political Science, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

ABSTRACT
This article analyses the state of democracy around the world in 2021. The level of
democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2021 was down to 1989 levels.
In 2021, autocracies were on the rise, harbouring 70% of the world population, or
5.4 billion people. There was also a record number of countries autocratizing in
2021: 33 countries, home to 36% of the global population. In recent years, the EU
seems to be facing its own wave of autocratization, with 20% of its members
autocratizing over the last decade. In addition to the continued downturn in global
democracy, this article documents several signs that autocratization is changing in
nature. Polarization increased substantially and significantly in 40 countries
between 2011 and 2021, and our analysis indicates that polarization increasingly
damages democracy especially recently and under anti-pluralist governments. Over
the past decade, the data also shows that autocratic governments more frequently
used misinformation to shape domestic and international opinion. Finally, with five
military coups and one self-coup, 2021 featured an unprecedented increase in
coups for this century. These coups contributed to the uptick in the number of
closed autocracies in 2021 and seem to signal a shift toward emboldened
autocratic actors.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 30 March 2022; Accepted 20 April 2022

KEYWORDS Democracy; autocracy; autocratization; polarization; misinformation; coup; Democratization

Introduction
On 24 February 2022, President Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an
independent country with an electoral democracy. The ensuing war comes at the
hands of the same leader who perfected many common strategies later used by auto-
crats throughout the third wave of autocratization. The invasion seems to confirm the
dangers the world faces as a consequence of autocratization. For years, scholars have
warned that the global wave of autocratization would have dire consequences, includ-
ing an increase in violent conflict. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is only one example of
an emerging pattern: around the world, autocratic leaders are taking bold actions to
further autocratization.

CONTACT Vanessa A. Boese vanessa.boese@v-dem.net

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduc-
tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
984 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

This feature article analyses the state of the world in 2021 in the light of the past ten
years. Our analysis is based on the latest (v.12) version of the Varieties of Democracy
(V-Dem) Dataset.1 The most recent V-Dem data suggest two main trends. First, the
data show that autocratization continued in 2021: the level of democracy enjoyed by
the average global citizen this year was down to 1989 levels. What this means is that
progress in global democracy over the past 30 years has been undone by recent auto-
cratization. Autocracies are on the rise and, by 2021, included 70% of the world popu-
lation. In contrast, liberal democracy is in decline: in 2021 there were only 34 liberal
democracies, the lowest count since 1995. The European Union may be facing its
own wave of autocratization with 20% of members autocratizing between 2011 and
2021.2
Second, autocratization is changing its nature. In 40 countries, political polarization
amplified substantially and significantly between 2011 and 2021. Once polarization
reaches “toxic” levels, polarization and autocratization can form a mutually reinfor-
cing, vicious cycle. Our analysis reveals that political polarization has increasingly
damaged democracy in recent years, particularly under anti-pluralist governments.
Relatedly, governments are more frequently using misinformation as a tool to manip-
ulate domestic and international public opinion in autocracies and autocratizing
countries. On the other hand, the “epidemic of coups” in 2021 resulted in autocratic
regression in four countries – Myanmar, Chad, Mali, and Guinea – which reverted
from electoral autocracy to closed autocracy last year. This surge in coups also paral-
leled an increase in the success rate of coups: in 2021 5 of 7 (71%) of coup attempts
were successful, compared to an average of 50% since 1950.3 This shift could indicate
that regimes have also become less capable of deterring coup attempts. Overall, the
signals of a change in the nature of autocratization point to a pattern in which auto-
cratization no longer necessarily proceeds at a slow and incremental pace.
The first section details the state of democracy around the world. The article then
shifts focus to the countries that were democratizing and autocratizing over the last
decade. The third section presents our analysis of the signals that autocratization is
changing in nature, including a discussion of how anti-pluralist parties facilitate auto-
cratization, before concluding.

Global level of democracy reverted to 1989

The level of liberal democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2021 is down to
a level last seen in 1989. In other words, the last ten years set the world back to the final
year of the Cold War in terms of democratic development, as demonstrated in
Figure 1. The left panel is based on country averages and the right panel on popu-
lation-weighted averages. Both show the “third wave of democratization”4 starting
in 1974 and peaking after the end of the Cold War. About a decade ago, the global
average level of democracy began to decline. The red line in the left-hand panel
shows that democracy is back to the 2000-level when using the country averages.
The same line in the right-hand panel demonstrates that the level of democracy
enjoyed by the average global citizen is now at a level last recorded by the end of
the cold war in 1989.
Since democracy is rule by the people, it matters how many people are enjoying
democratic rights and freedoms around the world. The population-weighted
measure is arguably therefore a more meaningful measure of the state of democracy
 DEMOCRATIZATION 985

Figure 1. Liberal Democracy Index, global and regional averages, 1971–2021.

Note: The grey area marks the confidence intervals. The left panel is based on conventional country averages.
The right-hand panel shows average levels of democracy weighted by population sizes.

worldwide. The decline starting in 2011 is by this measure dramatic, affecting most
regions. In Asia-Pacific, the degree of liberal democracy enjoyed by citizens is down
to levels last seen in 1986. The average level of democracy in Eastern Europe and
Central Asia has gradually regressed down to a level found in 1991 at the end of the
Cold War. Similarly, democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean has now fallen
to an average level last seen in the region around 1990.

More autocracies
Most of the analyses in this article focus on gradual changes in V-Dem’s Liberal
Democracy Index (LDI). In this section, however, we use the Regimes of the World
(RoW) Index, which uses the same data and indicators as the LDI to categorize
countries according to four distinct regime types: closed autocracies, electoral autocra-
cies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies.5 Figure 2 shows the number of

Figure 2. Number of countries and share of population by regime type, 1971–2021.

Note: Figure 2 plots the number of countries (left-hand panel) and the share of the world’s population (right-
hand panel), by regime type.
986 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

countries (left panel) and the share of the world population (right panel) in each
regime type over the last five decades.
According to the RoW classification, there were 89 democracies and 90 autocracies
in the world in 2021.6 The number of liberal democracies declined from a peak of 42 in
2012 to 34 countries, a mere 13% of the world’s population in 2021. The number of
electoral democracies increased from the end of the 1980s to 55 countries in 2021.
However, the share of the world’s population living in electoral democracies decreased
markedly in recent years, down to 16% by 2021.
Autocratic countries were the dominant regime type in 2021. Seventy per cent of the
world population – 5.4 billion people – lived in autocracies last year. Electoral autocra-
cies were home to 44% of the world’s population in 2021, following a large increase
with India’s downgrade to electoral autocracy in 2019. In 2021, countries such as El
Salvador, Nigeria, and Tunisia reverted to electoral autocracy. Notably, closed autocra-
cies were on the rise in the last year. This rise of closed autocracies during the “third
wave of autocratization” was more pronounced in 2021 than in previous years.7 From a
record low of 20 closed autocracies in 2012, there were 30 in 2021. In the last year
alone, five countries reverted to closed autocracy as a result of coups (Chad, Guinea,
Mali, and Myanmar) or civil war (Afghanistan). The increase in closed autocracies
is one of the signals of the changing nature of autocratization that we discuss
further below.

A decade of dramatic change

Figure 3 demonstrates that just ten years ago, the world looked very different from
today. In 2011, there were more countries improving, rather than declining, on
every aspect of democracy. By 2021, there were more countries declining than advan-
cing on nearly all democratic aspects captured by V-Dem measures.
In 2011, elections, the rule of law, freedom of expression, and freedom of associ-
ation were declining in six or fewer countries but advancing in ten to 30 countries,
as compared to ten years previously. By 2021, there was a substantial deterioration
in freedom of expression in a record 35 countries, while only ten countries were advan-
cing on this measure. For rule of law, quality of elections, and freedom of association,
the number of countries in decline by 2021 also far outweighed the number making

Figure 3. Democratic aspects improving and declining, 2011 vs. 2021.

Note: Figure 3 shows the number of countries improving and declining significantly and substantially for
different components of democracy, over a ten year period. The left panel compares changes from 2001 to
2011 and the right panel compares changes from 2011 to 2021.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 987

progress. The picture is similar for the increase in polarization, which we discuss more
below. Polarization is captured in part by declining respect for legitimate opposition
and counterarguments measured in the deliberative component.8 Between 2011 and
2021, deliberative aspects of democracy declined in 32 countries. This sharp decrease
represents a vast change from the count of five countries with deteriorating delibera-
tive aspects in 2011.

Drilling down to indicators

Focusing on specific democracy indicators that make up the indices above, we find that
the count of countries with declining democratic institutions is higher for many indi-
vidual indicators than for V-Dem’s democracy indices. In other words, there are many
countries where individual aspects of democracy have eroded but where these trends
are not yet captured by analysis at the aggregate level discussed above.
Figure 4 shows the indicators that declined substantially and signi!cantly in the
greatest number of countries between 2011 and 2021. First, we note that repression
of civil society organizations (CSOs) worsened in 44 countries over the past ten
years, making it one of the indicators most commonly a”ected by autocratization.
Further, direct government control over CSOs’ existence (“entry and exit”) moved
in an authoritarian direction in 37 countries. These data are evidence for the farranging
weakening of civil society around the world. Autocrats seem to understand that one of
the greatest defenses of democracy is a strong and independent civil society that can
mobilize people against autocratic rule (see the section on mobilization below).
Figure 4 also shows that all the indicators capturing freedom of expression and the
media are on the list of the top 20 declining indicators, deteriorating in between 27 and
42 countries. Of particular note is the frequency with which governments attempt to
censor the media: over the last decade this indicator is the second most common to
decline. Overall, these trends evidence intensifying attacks against free expression,
echoing the results in Hellmeier et al.9

Figure 4. Top 20 declining indicators, 2011–2021.

988 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Finally, there is a noteworthy presence of indicators of liberal democracy, including

high court independence and executive oversight, among the top 20 declining indi-
cators. These critical aspects of democracy have moved in an authoritarian direction
in 25–32 countries. Although indicators constituting V-Dem’s Clean Elections Index
declined in relatively few countries, it should be noted that the autonomy of electoral
management bodies declined in 25 countries. Attacks on the fair administration of
elections is thus one area of concern in recent patterns of autocratization.10

Democratizers and autocratizers

Figure 5 shows patterns of autocratization and democratization over the last five
decades. In the left-hand panel, the dashed blue line displays how the number of
democratizing countries increased until the peak of 72 in 1999. This increase was
followed by a dramatic decline that continued into 2021. At 15 in 2021, the
number of democratizing countries was down to levels last seen at the beginning
of the third wave of democratization in 1978. These democratizing countries had
relatively small populations, hosting only 3% of the world population. The red
line in Figure 5 displays the declining number of autocratizing countries until
the late 1990s and the increase since. The count of 33 autocratizing countries in
2021 was higher than at any time in the last 50 years. Autocratizing countries
were also populous, with 36% of the world population in 2021. The autocratizing
countries tend also to be influential regional and global powers. The group included
major G20 countries such as Brazil, India, Turkey, and the United States of
America, as well as influential regional countries, including Bangladesh, Tanzania,
Thailand, and The Philippines.
Figure 6 shows which countries advanced or declined on the LDI. Four
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa made democratic progress, whereas eleven
countries declined between 2011 and 2021. Four of the democratically advancing
countries were in the Asia-Pacific region, but almost twice as many – seven
countries – worsened in that region over the last decade. In Eastern Europe
and Central Asia, three countries improved democratically in the last decade,
while seven declined over the same period. Latin America and the Caribbean
have seen two countries democratically advance and four countries regress. In

Figure 5. Autocratizing vs. democratizing countries, 1971–2021.

Note: Figure 5 shows patterns of democratization and autocratization over the last 50 years. The left-hand panel
displays the number of countries in each category and the right-hand panel shows the share of the world popu-
lation living in autocratizing or democratizing countries.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 989

Figure 6. Advances vs. declines on the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI), 2011–2021.
Note: Country names are highlighted if the difference between 2011 and 2021 is significant and substantial.

the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), two countries democratically
improved and two declined since 2011. Finally, in Western Europe and North
America, no country has improved substantially on the LDI since 2011, and
two countries registered declines. (The Appendix provides further analysis of
regional trends in democratization and autocratization.)

The top democratizers and autocratizers

The left-hand panel of Figure 7 displays the trajectories for all top democratizers over
the last ten years. It shows that among the top ten democratizing countries over the last

Figure 7. Top 10 democratizing vs. autocratizing countries (10-year).

Note: Figure 7 plots values of the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) for the 10 countries with the highest amount of
LDI increase (left panel) and decrease (right panel) in the last 10 years.
990 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

ten years, seven out of ten were autocracies in 2011. Six out of these ten had become
democracies by 2021. However, only Dominican Republic and Seychelles were still in
an upward trajectory by 2021, and the remaining countries had either stagnated or
started to fall on the LDI.
The right-hand panel in Figure 7 shows the trajectories of the top ten autocratizers.
Two new countries – El Salvador and Mali – entered this list in 2021 compared to the
list in last year’s State of the World article. Notably, all top autocratizers were democ-
racies ten years ago but only three remained democracies in 2021. This pattern closely
mirrors a recent analysis of all episodes of autocratization starting in democracies over
the past century, which found that almost 80% of autocratization episodes lead to
breakdown of democracy.11 Autocratization very rarely stops short of autocracy.
It is also worth noting that anti-pluralist parties drove autocratization in at least six
of the top autocratizers: Brazil, Hungary, India, Poland, Serbia, and Turkey.12 Anti-
pluralist parties and their leaders lack commitment to the democratic process, disre-
spect fundamental minority rights, encourage demonization of political opponents,
and tend to accept political violence. These ruling parties are typically nationalist-
reactionary and have used government power to push forward autocratic agendas.
In Poland, for example, the ruling party ramped up government control over the judi-
ciary13 and the media.14 Prime Minister Orbán is using his control over the media in
Hungary, to slander civil society figures and the independent media ahead of the 2022
general elections.15 These tendencies often coincide with increasing polarization, as the
next section discusses further.
El Salvador, Mali, Poland, and Serbia continued their steep downward trend in 2021.
Mali had its second coup in less than a year in May 2021. In El Salvador, President
Nayib Bukele and his party removed constraints on the executive and undermined the judi-
ciary, for example by removing five supreme court judges.16 Benin, Hungary, and Turkey
were not autocratizing at the same pace as in previous years but remained electoral auto-
cracies. Benin held presidential elections in 2021 where key opposition figures were either
arrested or in exile, leading to the re-election of sitting President Patrice Talon.17 Brazil,

Figure 8. Top 10 democratizing vs. autocratizing countries (3-year).

Note: Figure 8 plots values of the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) for the 10 countries with the highest amount of
LDI increase (left panel) and decrease (right panel) in the last 3 years. Markers and colour indicate each country’s
regime type on the regimes of the world index.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 991

India, and Mauritius’ trajectories stabilized in recent years. In Brazil, President Bolsonaro
faced push-back from the Supreme Court on his attempts to discredit the electoral system.18

In focus: the last three years

Here we take a closer look at changes in the last three years in order to identify the
countries that started to change only recently. Figure 8 shows that only three out of
the top ten democratizers since 2011 were also among the top democratizers in the
past three years: Armenia, Dominican Republic, and Seychelles. The new, more
recent, democratizers were Malawi, Maldives, Malta, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia,
and Ukraine. In the best-case scenario, the differences between the top democratizers
from the ten-year and three-year periods could be the first sign of a reversal of the
downward trend for democratization around the world. However, it remains to be
seen whether such a pattern will develop.
In comparison, five of the top ten autocratizers since 2011 were also found among the
top autocratizers in the last three years: Benin, El Salvador, Mali, Mauritius, and Poland.
These are countries where the process of autocratization has both been ongoing for a long
while and has continued into the present. Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Myanmar, Slovenia,
and Tunisia are new autocratizers that appear only in the list based on the last three years.

The EU facing its own wave of autocratization?

Figure 8 shows that the EU harbours a few recent democratizers. Malta, Romania, and
Slovakia registered significant improvements in the last three years. Another two
neighbours to the east – Moldova and Ukraine – were on the list of top democratizers
from the last three years, though the future of Ukrainian democracy is highly uncertain
at the time of writing.
In contrast, six of the EU’s 27 member states were autocratizing between 2011 and
2021. With more than 20% of EU members autocratizing, the EU is starting to face its
own wave of autocratization. Hungary and Poland were on the list of top autocratizers
in the world over the last decade and Hungary reverted to electoral autocracy in 2018.
Autocratization is now also affecting Slovenia, which one of the countries with the
highest levels of decline in democracy over the last three years. In Croatia, Czech
Republic, and Greece, three newly autocratizing countries, the change is less pro-
nounced but is statistically significant.
In addition, three of the EU’s neighbours on the eastern flank are becoming increas-
ingly autocratic. Turkey was still one of the top autocratizers, although it was already
classified as an electoral autocracy by 2013. Serbia was a top autocratizer and was
downgraded to electoral autocracy in 2014. Already an electoral autocracy, conditions
recently worsened further in Belarus with the regime ramping up repression after the
contested 2020 elections.

Popular mobilization in (another) year of autocratization

Figure 9 displays the level of mobilization for democracy and autocracy against the
backdrop of the number of autocratizing countries in each year. The State of the
World article two years ago noted that pro-democratic mobilization in reaction to
autocratization worldwide reached the highest level in 2019.19 Then restrictions on
992 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Figure 9. Mobilization and autocratization, 1971–2021.

freedom of assembly in response to the Covid-19 pandemic pushed levels of mass

mobilization down in 2020, and this continued in 2021. Meanwhile, the number of
autocratizing countries increased significantly during the last two years. The lack of
a corresponding increase in pro-democratic mobilization confronting such a trend,
risks allowing autocratization to escalate unchallenged.
Figure A6 in the Appendix shows the countries in which large-scale pro-democracy
protests took place in 2021, broken down by whether countries were democratizing,
autocratizing, or unchanging on the LDI. Among these countries, those with recent
military coups have some of the highest levels of pro-democracy mobilization. For
instance, the military coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021 provoked peaceful pro-
democracy mobilization coordinated by the Campaign for Civil Disobedience
(CDM). The government responded by repressing pro-democratic protesters, and
the military and police killed at least 1503 protesters.20
In addition, Figure A7 of the Appendix shows the level of mass mobilization for auto-
cracy. showing that it occurs more often in countries undergoing autocratization. For
example, in the United States pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol, encouraged by
the former president on the spurious grounds of mass electoral fraud.21 In Brazil, President
Jair Bolsonaro asked supporters to coordinate rallies on 14 September 2021 in support of
anti-democratic calls, including the removal of all supreme court judges and the spectre of a
military coup.22 In Mali, thousands of people marched in Bamako in support of the mili-
tary-dominated transitional government on 22 September 2021.23 These illustrations
suggest that authoritarian-minded leaders are actively mobilizing people to obtain
popular support for their anti-democratic agendas and to shore up the legitimacy of
their regimes.24

Autocratization changing its nature?

This section documents signs that autocratization processes are out of control. Leaders
seem to be taking bolder actions now than in the past. Beyond the issues discussed
above, three areas signal this changing nature of autocratization.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 993

First, political polarization – a politicized division of society into mutually distrustful

Us versus Them camps25 – reached unprecedented global levels in 2021. Leaders of 40
countries contributed to sizeable increases in polarization over the past decade. Polariz-
ation becomes “toxic” when it reaches these extreme levels. Camps of “Us vs. Them”
start questioning each other’s legitimacy. Opposition begins to be portrayed as an exis-
tential threat to a way of life or to a nation, and is no longer believed to deserve equal
respect.26 At that point, democratic norms and rules can be set aside to “save the nation.”
Polarization and autocratization then form a mutually reinforcing, vicious cycle.
Second, governments are increasingly using misinformation as a tool to manipulate
public opinion, and their own international reputation. Government manipulation of
statistics and surging misinformation on social media, for example in Russia, also illus-
trate how political leaders are becoming bolder in furthering autocratization at home
and abroad.
Finally, five military and one self-coup in 2021 illustrate that autocratization no
longer necessarily proceeds at a slow and incremental pace, and it does not only
occur in democracies.

A wave of polarization
Political polarization is a major global trend today. Such polarization turns toxic when
levels of polarization become high and it permeates society to shape it.27 Figure 10 illus-
trates the worldwide escalation of polarization over the past decade using V-Dem’s “Pol-
itical Polarization” indicator. It measures the extent to which society is polarized into
antagonistic, political camps where political differences affect social relationships
beyond political discussions. Most countries are located above the diagonal, indicating

Figure 10. Increasing vs. decreasing political polarization, 2011–2021.

Note: Countries are labelled if the difference between 2011 and 2021 was statistically significant and substan-
tially meaningful.
994 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

increasing polarization between 2011 and 2021. Polarization seems to affect countries
regardless of their size, economic performance, and levels of democracy.

Polarization and autocratization are mutually reinforcing

Moderate levels of political polarization are expected in a democracy to provide cues to
help voters choose among candidates, mobilize supporters, strengthen political parties,
and provide programmatic choices. In new democracies, political polarization can help
to build and institutionalize party organizations and, in extension of that, enhance the
ability of voters and opposition parties to hold governments accountable.28
Yet, research demonstrates that high levels of polarization are detrimental for
democracy and reinforce autocratization processes.29 When polarization reaches
toxic levels, each camp questions the moral legitimacy of the other group, viewing
the opposition or its policies as an existential threat to their way of life or the nation
as a whole. This, in turn, affects individual voting decisions. Citizens in highly polar-
ized contexts are willing to trade off democratic principles for other priorities such as
political ideology, partisan loyalty, or policy preferences. When voters face a choice
between a co-partisan candidate whose positions violate democratic principles and a
candidate who complies with democratic principles but is otherwise unappealing, a
significant fraction of voters in highly polarized contexts are willing to sacrifice demo-
cratic principles to elect a candidate who champions their party or interests.30 Hence,
toxic levels of polarization tend to contribute to electoral victories of anti-pluralist
leaders and to empowering their illiberal agendas.31
As Somer et al.32 emphasize, toxic polarization is not an automatic consequence of
structural preconditions, but the result of a strategic choice of political actors to exploit
pre-existing cleavages for their own political ends. Once autocratization is ongoing and
anti-pluralist leaders take office, polarization is often pushed to even more extreme
levels. Anti-pluralist parties rely on derogatory rhetoric and misinformation to
insult, offend, or intimidate out-group members – usually minorities or political
opponents. Increasing use of hate speech and misinformation in turn worsen polariz-
ation and thereby create room for further autocratization.
This mutually reinforcing relationship between toxic polarization and autocratiza-
tion is corroborated by data on Brazil, Hungary, India, Poland, Serbia, and Turkey, i.e.
all of the top ten autocratizing countries with anti-pluralist ruling parties. Figure 11
demonstrates that the measures of political polarization and political parties’ use of
hate speech tend to systematically rise together. Once they escalate into toxic levels,
a downturn on the LDI follows.
In Brazil, for example, polarization started rising in 2013 and reached toxic levels
with the electoral victory of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. Since taking
office, Bolsonaro has joined demonstrators calling for military intervention in
Brazil’s politics and the closure of Congress and the Supreme Court. Moreover, he
has promoted a large-scale militarization of his government and fuelled public distrust
in the voting system.33
In Hungary, polarization increased before 2010 during Viktor Orbán’s ascension to
power and reached toxic levels after his election in 2010. This polarization paved the
way for Fidesz to consolidate its hold on power and to expand its anti-pluralism by
derailing checks and balances and press freedom, and by changing electoral rules to
its advantage.34
 DEMOCRATIZATION 995

Figure 11. Polarization in top autocratizing countries with anti-pluralist ruling parties, 2006–2021.
Note: The left y-axis displays the score for Political Polarization, Government Disinformation (Domestic and
Abroad), and Political Parties Hate Speech. All scores except for Political Polarization, have been reversed to
mean that higher equals more. The right y-axis represents the scale for the LDI (0–1). The vertical line shows
the year the anti-pluralist party came into power.

Toxic levels of political polarization developed in Turkey after President Recep

Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP came to power with the elections in 2002. It is not par-
ticularly controversial to argue that creating toxic levels of polarization has functioned
as a strategic tool to enable reforms and actions to break down democracy in Turkey.35
The mutually reinforcing relationship of polarization and autocratization illustrated
by these cases extends far beyond the top ten autocratizing countries. Table 1 shows
evidence that such a pattern of a vicious circle is generalizable. In the first five
models, we examine how polarization and anti-pluralist ruling parties impacted on
liberal democracy during the third wave of autocratization (after 2000).36 Model 1

Table 1. Effects of polarization and anti-pluralist ruling parties on democracy and misinformation.
Liberal Democracy Misinformation
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Polarization −0.037*** −0.029*** 4.863* 0.223***
(0.007) (0.007) (2.897) (0.050)
Anti-Pluralist Party −0.044*** −0.037*** 0.221***
(0.011) (0.010) (0.057)
Polarization*Anti-Pluralist Party −0.012*
(0.007)
Year −0.002
(0.003)
Polarization*Year −0.002*
(0.001)
Constant 0.160*** 0.157*** 0.165*** 4.782 0.459
(0.006) (0.005) (0.006) (6.492) (0.032)
Observations 3918 3562 3560 314 3562
Country FE ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Year FE ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Notes: Dependent variable is LDI (Models 1–4) and Misinformation (Model 5). Standard errors clustered by
country. Sample is all countries (Models 1, 2, 3, 5) and autocratizing countries (Model 4) from 2000–2021
(Models 1, 4) and 2000–2019 (Models 2, 3, 5). ***, **, * significant at .01, .05, .10, respectively.
996 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

aligns closely with the results in Somer et al.37 The results show that polarization has a
strong and significant negative effect on liberal democracy during the third wave of
autocratization. In Model 2, we analyse the effect of anti-pluralist ruling parties on
liberal democracy. Similar to Lührmann et al.38 we find that anti-pluralist parties are
associated with lower levels of liberal democracy.39 Building on these independent
effects, Model 3 examines the interaction between anti-pluralist parties and polariz-
ation. The results show significant interaction effects. Political polarization is more
damaging to liberal democracy when an anti-pluralist party is in power. This inter-
action effect may indicate that polarization creates more opportunities for anti-plural-
ist leaders to implement their illiberal agendas to weaken democracy.
Model 4 shows additional evidence of autocratization changing its nature. Model 4
assesses whether the damaging effects of polarization has shifted over the course of the
third wave of autocratization. This model analyses the interaction between polarization
and time in the sample of autocratizing countries.40 The interaction effect between
polarization and time is statistically significant. This interaction effect is clearly dis-
played in the marginal effects plot in Figure 12. The negative effect of polarization
on liberal democracy becomes more pronounced over the years and the effect is
substantial.

Figure 12. Marginal effects, Model 4 in Table 1.

 DEMOCRATIZATION 997

Lastly, while it is thus clear that polarization and anti-pluralist ruling parties are
damaging for democracy, we also suggest that polarization and government spread
of misinformation through social media domestically are mutually reinforcing. The
increase in polarization and anti-pluralist ruling parties in more recent years has
fuelled an increase in government misinformation. Anti-pluralist leaders may capi-
talize on increased polarization to spread lies about political opponents.41 High
levels of polarization make opposing sides of the electorate more susceptible to
these negative campaigns.42 Model 5 of Table 1 provides evidence to this corre-
lation. Polarization and the presence of anti-pluralist ruling parties are strongly
and significantly correlated with increasing misinformation throughout the
twenty-first century. This increase in governments’ use of misinformation is the
focus of the next section.

Government misinformation multiplying

Another signal of autocratization changing its nature is the increasingly high levels of,
and strategic use of, misinformation,43 including the intentional manipulation of data
by autocratic leaders.
Access to high-quality and transparent data is a global common good. The World
Development Report 2021 shows why reliable data is necessary to improve the lives of
citizens through better government programmes and policies, as well as business
decisions.44 Autocratic governments commonly manipulate official statistics, such as
the Covid-19 death statistics45 or official data on economic growth.46 Citizens’ political
knowledge is a foundation for representative democracy.47 A certain level of political
knowledge increases citizens’ ability to connect their interests with specific public
issues. Lack of such knowledge and reliance on false information instead misguide citi-
zens’ policy preferences.48 Thus, democracy’s very core of vertical accountability
between citizens and representatives is shattered in a context of rampant misinforma-
tion. Government disinformation and fake news regarding political opponents can also
inflate negative feelings and distrust, or even instigate violence aggravating polariz-
ation.49 Thus, misinformation endangers democracy by distorting people’s views,
demolishing accountability, and by fuelling polarization.50
Autocratic governments are more likely than democracies to spread disinformation
to improve their reputation both domestically and internationally. Figure 13 demon-
strates this using two variables from the Digital Society Project51 that measure how
often governments and their agents use social media to disseminate misleading view-
points or false information. The Figure also shows that while governments in autocra-
cies use misinformation for international and domestic audiences alike, when
democratic governments use misinformation it is more often targeted at the domestic
sphere, rather than abroad.
Although disinformation is now a global issue, it is particularly alarming in auto-
cracies since data transparency and reliability are at much lower levels in autocracies
than in democracies to begin with.52 The lack of free news media and independent
fact-checking organizations contributes to rumours being notably common in autocra-
cies.53 Citizens in autocracies are often forced to rely on government-controlled infor-
mation since internet access is lower in autocracies compared to democracies,54
autocrats censor content,55 and authoritarian governments frequently use interference
in online traffic, such as cyber-attacks and temporary shutdowns.56 Figure A9 in the
998 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Figure 13. Government dissemination of false information in 2021.

Note: Extent to which governments and their agents use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or
false information to influence their own population (x) as well as citizens of other countries (y). The lines are
fitted lines with 95% confidence intervals for autocracies and democracies, respectively.

Figure 14. Government dissemination of false information, 2001–2021.

Note: Extent to which governments and their agents use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or
false information to influence their own population (left) as well as citizens of other countries (right). Values are
regional averages.

Appendix shows that the most rapid increases in government dissemination of false
information occurred in autocracies.
Figure 14 illustrates this worldwide rise of disinformation. Governments have been
increasing their use of social media to spread false information both at home (left-hand
panel) and abroad (right-hand panel). Recently, the uptake is particularly pronounced
in the global south across Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan
 DEMOCRATIZATION 999

Africa, and MENA. The latter is the region with the highest levels of government-
spread false information. Governments in Western Europe and North America
spread misinformation through social media more rarely, but the airing of misinfor-
mation for both domestic and international audiences has increased also in this part
of the world since the mid-2010s. Radical right-wing parties benefit the most from mal-
icious bots on social media.57 The frequent use of misinformation during Trump’s
administration and the Brexit debate in the United Kingdom are the most remarkable
examples of such cases in this region.58 As evidenced above in Figure 11, anti-pluralist
parties increasingly disseminate misinformation and, once they are in power, levels of
democracy decrease substantially.

The rise of misinformation in Russia

The substantial rise in disinformation disseminated by the Russian government is an
instructive example. Figure 15 shows that the government in Russia increasingly relied
on the spread of false information since 2008 when it failed to justify its invasion of
Georgia in the media.
The Kremlin learned a lesson from this failure and modernized its approach to infor-
mation campaigns while increasing its propaganda budget by 250% in 3 years.59 During
Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin reached new heights of disinformation
bluring the border between lies and reality.60 Russia simultaneously expanded its disin-
formation campaigns abroad. It became extensive during the US presidential elections in
2016 and 2020,61 and targeted specific individuals to divide and weaken democratic insti-
tutions.62 During the pandemic in 2021, Russia’s domestic and international dissemina-
tion of disinformation reached a new high (Figure 15). Evidence show that the Kremlin

Figure 15. The Russian government’s dissemination of false information, 2011–2021.

1000 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

has again staged disinformation campaigns during its recent invasion of Ukraine, this
time particularly targeting its own population.63

Coups as a sign of a change

Another sign of that the nature of autocratization may be an increase in coups: the five
military- and one self-coup recorded in 2021 compared to an annual average of 1.2
during the twenty first years of the twenty-first century.64 Five of the coups happened
in already autocratic regimes highlighting that autocracies are not immune to further
autocratization. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres labelled this an “epidemic of
coup d’états.”65 The coups led to the breakdown of democracy in Tunisia and four new
closed autocracies (Myanmar, Chad, Mali, and Guinea), while destroying all immedi-
ate prospects for Sudan to move out of closed authoritarianism. Of the military coups
occurring in 2021, coup-makers were successful in all cases except in Niger and a first
failed attempt in Sudan. This rate of success, 5 out of 7 (71%), is higher the average of
50% yearly success rate since 1950.66
Myanmar was one of the top democratizers until the military seized control on the
day the new parliament should have convened after the 2020 elections.67 It brought
Myanmar’s fledging democratization process to an abrupt end. In Chad, president
Idriss Déby was killed by rebels on April 20, 2021. The military suspended parliament
and installed Déby’s son, Mahamat Déby, as new president in violation of consti-
tutional provisions.68 Mali suffered from two military coups in less than a year.
In the second, Vice President Assimi Goïta led the military to oust the sitting president
and prime minister on 24 May 2021 and installed himself as acting president.69
In Guinea, the military ousted Guinea’s president, Alpha Condé, on 5 September
2021. Special Forces Commander Mamady Doumbouya became acting president.70
A military coup on 25 October 2021 removed a short-lived civilian regime in Sudan.
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan became the de facto leader of the country.71 The
trend seems to continue in 2022. The military unseated President Roch Kaboré in
Burkina Faso on 23 January, derailing its electoral democracy.72
These coups occur in an international environment that seems increasingly favour-
able to autocrats and autocratization.73 After the Cold War, military forces mostly
refrained from staging coups even where there were grievances that could be used
to justify a take-over. Part of the reason was probably that the international community
established strong norms against unconstitutional transfers of power.74 But with the
number of liberal democracies dwindling, record numbers of nations undergoing
autocratization, and autocracies such as China and Russia expanding their inter-
national influence, it seems that the incentives stacked against would-be coup
makers are now less severe. This could also help explain the much higher rate of
success among military coups in 2021 as compared to previous years.

Conclusion
The democratic achievements of the past thirty years have been eradicated at the global
level: The level of democracy enjoyed by the average citizen in the world is down to
levels last observed around 1989. By this measure, the massive expansion of democratic
rights and freedoms that followed the end of the Cold War have been lost and 70% of
the world’s population now lives in autocracies. Naturally, there are individual
 DEMOCRATIZATION 1001

countries where freedoms are much greater today than in 1989 but there are also many
countries where the opposite is true.
The third wave of autocratization is increasing its speed and engulfing additional
nations. 2021 recorded a record of 33 countries autocratizing, while the numbers of
liberal democracies and democratizing nations are both dwindling. The autocratizing
countries include the G20 states Brazil, India, Turkey, and the United States of
America, as well as other populous and internationally influential countries, together
hosting 36% of the world population. The 15 democratizing countries are typically less
populous, making up only 3% of the world population in 2021.
There are also signs that autocratization is changing its nature. Polarization is
increasing rapidly across the world. When polarization becomes toxic, voters are
more likely to disregard democratic priorities in favour of loyalty to the in-group.
Moreover, polarization and autocratization are mutually reinforcing, and we show
in this article that the negative effect of polarization on liberal democracy has increased
in recent years. Related to this, the world has also seen an expansion of government
misinformation. Reliable information is a public good necessary both for policy-
making and voter’s capacity to exert vertical accountability. The increase in misinfor-
mation has amplified the recent rise in polarization and autocratization. Our analysis
has revealed that anti-pluralist governments facilitate autocratization by capitalizing
on increased polarization or misinformation to create an opportunity to proceed anti-
democratic reforms.
Finally, it seems that the post-Cold War norm against unconstitutional transfers of
power has eroded to the point when coups begin to reemerge on the scene. While some
of these occurred in countries prone to military coups, 2021 also saw a military coup in
Myanmar and a self-coup in Tunisia, two countries that have received extensive
democracy support in the last decade.
The escalating wave of autocratization presents a grim outlook in yet another respect.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe is once again the centre of a war. Research
has demonstrated over and over again that democracies do not fight wars with each
other, and are also much less prone to engage in other forms of armed conflicts.75
Had Putin not lead Russia away from the level of democracy it enjoyed in the mid-
1990s, the war today would in all likelihood not have happened. As a consequence of
autocratization worldwide, the risk of war and armed conflicts increases across the globe.

Notes
1. Coppedge et al., V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v12. Every annual update improves the quality
of the data and the scores reported in earlier State of the World articles may therefore not
always match. For details on the methodology, see Pemstein et al., “The V-Dem Measurement
Model.”
2. This article uses a simplified metric to capture which countries are autocratizing or democra-
tizing. It measures the difference between the country score on the Liberal Democracy Index
(LDI) in 2021 and 2011. A country is autocratizing or democratizing if the difference is stat-
istically significant (the confidence intervals do not overlap) and substantial (the difference
is greater than 0.05 on a 0–1 scale). For a more sophisticated measure, see the “Episodes of
Regime Transformation” Project: On Github (https://github.com/vdeminstitute/ert) and
Maerz et al., Introducing the ERT dataset.
3. In 2021 there were also two failed coup attempts, in Sudan (September) and Niger (March).
Please find data tracking coup attempts at https://www.arresteddictatorship.com/global-
instances-of-coups.html.
1002 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

4. Huntington, The Third Wave.

5. The typology and indicator are published in Lührmann, Tannenberg, and Lindberg, “Regimes
of the World.”
6. Uncertainty about countries scoring close to the threshold between democracy and autocracy
applied to 20 countries in 2021. Thus, the number of autocracies in the world might range from
80 to 100 countries, with 90 being the best estimate. See the variable v2x_regime_amb in the V-
Dem Dataset, v12.
7. Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave of Autocratization.”
8. V-Dem measures this feature as the range of consultation at the elite level; the extent to which
political elites give public justifications for their positions on matters of public policy; justify
their positions in terms of the public good; and acknowledge and respect counterarguments.
9. Hellmeier et al., “State of the world 2020.”
10. See Appendix for a not on the Covid-19 pandemic and autocratization.
11. Boese et al., “How Democracies Prevail.”
12. For further discussion of how to identify anti-pluralist parties, see Lührmann et al., “Disrupting
the autocratization sequence”.
13. https://apnews.com/article/europe-poland-courts-1fc3c963fa5b62a8f36e4bd7fabb01fa
14. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/11/polish-government-media-bill-latest-
move-silence-critics.
15. https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-election-campaign-hit-spying-allegations/.
16. https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/01/el-salvador-legislature-deepens-democratic-
backsliding.
17. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56690689.
18. https://www.dw.com/en/brazils-bolsonaro-asks-senate-to-impeach-supreme-court-judge/a-
58938384.
19. Maerz et al., “State of the World 2019.”
20. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55902070.
21. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55640437.
22. https://theintercept.com/2021/09/05/bolsonaro-september-7-brazil-trump-january-6/.
23. https://www.africanews.com/2021/09/23/mali-thousands-denounce-france-at-pro-army-rally/.
24. Hellmeier and Weidmann, “Pulling the Strings? The Strategic Use.”
25. E.g. Somer, McCoy, and Luke, “Pernicious Polarization, Autocratization and Opposition Strategies.”
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid, call it “pernicious.” See also Haggard and Kaufman, Democratic Regress in the Contempor-
ary World; Lührmann, “Disrupting the Autocratization Sequence.”
28. Campbell, Polarized; LeBas, “Can Polarization be Positive?”; Stavrakakis, “Paradoxes of
Polarization.”
29. E.g. Somer, McCoy, and Luke, “Pernicious Polarization, Autocratization and Opposition
Strategies.”
30. Graham and Svolik, “Democracy in America?”; Svolik, “Polarization Versus Democracy.”
31. Haggard and Kaufman, Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World; Lührmann, “Disrupt-
ing the Autocratization Sequence.”
32. Somer, McCoy, and Luke, “Pernicious Polarization, Autocratization and Opposition Strategies.”
33. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/brazil/2021-11-01/democracy-dying-brazil.
34. Vegetti, “The Political Nature of Ideological Polarization.”
35. Somer, “Turkey: The Slippery Slope.”
36. Polarization is measured with the V-Dem political polarization variable (v2cacamps, lagged
one year). Anti-pluralist ruling parties are those scoring above the 75th percentile in the V-
Party data’s anti-pluralist index. Lindberg et al., Varieties of Party Identity and Organization.
We fill this variable forward as long as the head of government did not change.
37. Somer, McCoy, and Luke, “Pernicious Polarization, Autocratization and Opposition
Strategies.”
38. Lührmann, Medzihorsky, and Lindberg, Walking the Talk.
39. These authors use the dependent variable of autocratization episodes, while we look at the
effect on V-Dem’s LDI.
40. This sample based on whether there was substantial and significant decline in the LDI compar-
ing year t to year t-10. In the Appendix, we run the same analysis using the Episodes of Regime
 DEMOCRATIZATION 1003

Transformation (ERT) dataset (Maerz et al., Introducing the ERT dataset), which offers a more
sophisticated measure of regime change. The results, in Table A1 and Figure A10 in Appendix
are quite similar, though the effect sizes are larger in the sample constructed from the ERT data.
If anything, the analysis here understates the evolving effect of polarization on democracy.
41. Haggard and Kaufman, Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World.
42. Graham and Svolik, “Democracy in America?”; Svolik, “Polarization Versus Democracy.”
43. We use the terms misinformation and disinformation interchangeably.
44. The World Bank, World Development Report 2021.
45. Annaka, Political Regime, Data Transparency; Kapoor et al., “Authoritarian Governments
Appear to Manipulate Covid Data.”
46. Magee and Doces, “Reconsidering Regime Type and Growth.”
47. Delli Carpini and Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics; Jerit and Zhao, “Political
Misinformation.”
48. Kuklinski et al., “Misinformation and the Currency of Democratic Citizenship.”
49. Osmundsen et al., “Partisan Polarization is the Primary Psychological.”
50. Hochschild and Einstein, “Misinformation and Democratic Politics”; Ibid.
51. Mechkova et al., Measuring Internet Politics.
52. E.g. Hollyer, Rosendorff, and Vreeland, “Democracy and Transparency”; Rosendorff and
Doces, “Transparency and Unfair Eviction in Democracies and Autocracies.”
53. Wang and Huang, “When ‘Fake News’ Becomes Real.”
54. Weidmann et al., “Digital Discrimination.”
55. Keremoğlu and Weidmann, “How Dictators Control the Internet”; King, Pan, and Roberts,
“How Censorship in China.”
56. Lutscher et al., “At Home and Abroad.”
57. Silva and Proksch, “Fake it ‘til you make it.”
58. Rose, Brexit, Trump, and Post-Truth Politics.
59. https://euromaidanpress.com/2014/09/23/russia-to-increase-budget-by-2-2-times-for-its-
main-propagandists-russia-tod.
60. Iasiello, “Russia’s Improved Information Operations”; Khaldarova and Pantti, “The Narrative
Battle Over the Ukrainian Conflict.”
61. Bennett and Livingston, “The Disinformation Order.”
62. Polyakova, “The Kremlin’s Plot Against Democracy.”
63. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/ukraine-russia-families.html.
64. A coup occurs when the military or political elites unseat the sitting executive by illegal means.
Powell and Thyne, “Global Instances of Coups from 1950 to 2010”; Bennett, Bjørnskov, and
Gohmann, “Coups, Regime Transitions, and Institutional Consequences.”
65. https://www.reuters.com/world/an-epidemic-coups-un-chief-laments-urging-security-
council-act-2021-10-26/.
66. https://www.arresteddictatorship.com/global-instances-of-coups.html.
67. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55902070.
68. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56830510.
69. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57239805.
70. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58453778.
71. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59045020.
72. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60112043.
73. Hyde, Democracy’s Backsliding in the International Environment.
74. Marinov and Goemans, “Coups and Democracy”; Yukawa et al., “Coup d’état and a Demo-
cratic Signal.”
75. Hegre, “Democracy and Armed Conflict”; Hegre, Bernhard, and Teorell, “Civil Society and the
Democratic Peace.”
76. Find an overview of the project here: https://www.v-dem.net/pandem.html. Find the latest
policy brief from the project here: https://www.v-dem.net/media/publications/pb_32.pdf.

Acknowledgements
This article is based on the V-Dem Institute’s Democracy Report 2022 (Boese et al., 2022). We thank
Hugo Tai and Jeremy Glass for skilful research assistance.
1004 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This research was made possible through support by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation [grant
number 2018.0144] (PI: Staffan I. Lindberg); by European Research Council [grant number 724191]
(PI: Staffan I. Lindberg).

Notes on contributors
Vanessa A. Boese is Assistant Professor at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the Uni-
versity of Gothenburg, Sweden. She has worked on the measurement of political institutions, on
democratic resilience, on processes of regime transformation (democratization and autocratization)
and on how these processes interact with conflict, or socio-economic outcomes. The findings from
her research are published or forthcoming in journals such as the British Journal of Political
Science, International Studies Quarterly, Political Science Research and Methods, Democratization,
and the Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy.
Martin Lundstedt is an assistant researcher at the V-Dem Institute, Department of Political Science at
the University of Gothenburg.
Kelly Morrison is a postdoctoral fellow at the V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg. Her
research focuses on human rights, democracy, and political violence. Her previous research has
appeared in the Journal of Politics.
Yuko Sato is a postdoctoral fellow at the V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg. Her research
focuses on popular protests, voting behavior, democratization, and autocratization, with a regional
focus on Latin America. Her previous research has appeared in Electoral Studies, Policy Studies
Journal, and Democratization.
Staffan I. Lindberg is Professor of political science and Director of the university-wide research infra-
structure V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, founding Principal Investigator of Var-
ieties of Democracy (V-Dem), founding Director of the national research infrastructure
DEMSCORE, Wallenberg Academy Fellow, author of Democracy and Elections in Africa as well as
other books and over 60 articles on issues such as democracy, elections, democratization, autocratiza-
tion, accountability, clientelism, sequence analysis methods, women’s representation, and voting
behavior. Lindberg also has extensive experience as consultant on development and democracy,
and as advisor to international organizations.

ORCID
Vanessa A. Boese http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1680-0745
Martin Lundstedt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5847-2671
Kelly Morrison http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3518-7330
Yuko Sato http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7458-6134
Staffan I. Lindberg http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0386-7390

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 DEMOCRATIZATION 1007

Appendix
Global level of democracy reverted to 1989

Figure A1. State of Liberal Democracy in 2021.

Democratizers and autocratizers

Democratization across regions
What are the regional patterns that emerge from changes in the countries discussed above? Among the
15 democratizing countries (Figure A2), the quality of elections is the aspect of democracy improving
the most across regions except in Latin America and the Caribbean and the MENA region. In
Armenia, Malaysia, and Seychelles for instance, there was a significant improvement in the autonomy
of electoral management bodies in the last 10 years. In The Gambia, there was great improvement
across many election indicators, including quality of voter registries, vote buying, and election
violence.
In Latin America and the Caribbean democratizing countries made the greatest strides in improv-
ing judicial constraints. In Dominican Republic and Ecuador, for example, there was significant and
substantial improvement in government compliance with the high court over the last ten years.
Leaders in the countries making improvements on democracy are in effect now much more accoun-
table to the judiciary than they were a decade ago. The long history of elections with already decent
quality in many countries may explain why there is little improvement in the clean elections index,
even among countries making improvements on the LDI. Notably, there was an average decline in
legislative constraints on the executive even across the democratizing countries in the MENA
region: Libya and Tunisia.

Autocratization across regions

A regional breakdown demonstrates that leaders often attack the same aspects of democracy in autocratiz-
ing countries: freedom of expression and especially the media (Figure A3). Across four regions (Asia-
Pacific, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and MENA), freedom of
expression and the media was the most common aspect of democracy to decline. While not the most com-
monly affected aspect in the remaining two regions, free expression was also severely derailed there. There
is also some regional variation in the aspects of democracy most often attacked in autocratizing countries.
Freedom of association and attacks on civil society are prominent aspect of autocratization in Asia-Pacific,
Latin America, and MENA. The critical legislative constraints on the executive were most frequently
undermined in two regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, and Western Europe and North America.
1008 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Figure A2. Changes in democratizing countries, by region. Notes: Figure A2 plots average change in democracy com-
ponents in countries that were democratizing between 2011 and 2021. Democratizing countries are those with sig-
nificant and substantial improvement on V-Dem’s liberal democracy index (LDI) during this 10-year period.

Figure A3. Declines in autocratizing countries, by region. Notes: Figure A3 plots average change in democracy
components in countries that were autocratizing between 2011 and 2021. Autocratizing countries are those with
significant and substantial decline on V-Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) during this 10-year period.

Pandemic backsliding?
The coronavirus pandemic has had limited direct effects on the downward trend in democracy world-
wide. While leaders of some countries took advantage of the pandemic to further consolidate power,
autocratization was typically happening in those cases already. The final policy brief from the Pan-
demic Backsliding Project shows that 57 countries recorded moderate violations and 44 countries
had major violations of international norms during the pandemic, with most of these violations occur-
ring in autocratic countries.76
 DEMOCRATIZATION 1009

Figure A4. Countries democratizing vs. autocratizing, 2011–2021. Notes: Figure A4 shows where the LDI has
improved (blue) or declined (red) substantially and significantly over the past decade. Countries in grey had
no substantial and significant change on the LDI during this period.

Figure A5. Autocratization in the EU and its Eastern neighbours. Notes: Figure A5 shows where the liberal
democracy index (LDI) substantially and significantly improved (blue) or declined (red) over the past decade.
Countries in grey had no substantial and significant change on the LDI during this period.

76
Find an overview of the project here: https://www.v-dem.net/pandem.html. Find the latest policy brief from
the project here: https://www.v-dem.net/media/publications/pb_32.pdf.
1010 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Figure A6. Mobilization for Democracy in 2021. Notes: Figure A6 shows the countries in which large-scale pro-
democracy protests took place in 2021 and relates that level to whether the country was democratizing, auto-
cratizing, or stable compared to ten years ago based on the LDI. The indicator of mass mobilization for democ-
racy captures the extent to which events with pro-democratic aims have been frequent and large. Horizontal
lines stand for the mean of the level of mobilization in each category.

Figure A7. Mobilization for Autocracy in 2021. Notes: Figure A7 shows the countries in which large-scale pro-
autocracy protests took place in 2021 and relates that level to whether the country was democratizing, auto-
cratizing, or stable compared to ten years ago based on the LDI. The indicator of mass mobilization for autocracy
captures the extent to which events with pro-autocratic aims have been frequent and large. Horizontal lines
stand for the mean of the level of mobilization in each category.
 DEMOCRATIZATION 1011

Figure A8. Countries with changes on political polarization, 2011–2021. Notes: Red marks countries where pol-
itical polarization increased substantially and significantly over the past ten years. Blue marks countries where
the level of polarization decreased. Countries in grey are unchanged.

Figure A9. Government dissemination of false information. Notes: Figure A9 shows two variables from the
Digital Society Project that measure how often governments and their agents use social media to disseminate
misleading viewpoints or false information to influence their own population (left) as well as citizens of other
countries (right). The value shown is the average values of the RoW.
1012 V. A. BOESE ET AL.

Figure A10. Marginal effects, Model 4 in Table A1 (ERT).

 DEMOCRATIZATION 1013

Autocratization changing its nature?

Regression analysis using ERT data
Table A1. Effects of polarization and anti-pluralist parties on democracy and misinformation (ERT).
Liberal Democracy Misinformation
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Polarization −0.041*** −0.034*** 6.093** 0.223***
(0.008) (0.008) (2.685) (0.050)
Anti-Pluralist Party −0.053*** 0.046*** 0.221***
(0.010)− (0.011) (0.057)

Polarization*Anti-Pluralist Party −0.011*

(0.007)
Year −0.003
(0.002)
Polarization*Year −0.003**
(0.001)
Constant 0.142*** 0.108*** 0.140*** 6.930 0.459***
(0.010) (0.007) (0.010) (4.389) (0.032)

Observations 4954 4605 4596 516 3562

Country FE ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Year FE ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Notes: Dependent variable is LDI (Models 1–4) and Misinformation (Model 6). Standard errors clustered by
country. Sample is all countries (Models 1, 2, 3, 5) and autocratizing countries (Model 4) from 1994–2021
(Models 1, 4) and 1994–2019 (Models 2, 3, 5). ***, **, * significant at .01, .05, .10, respectively.