Global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025. But even in this especially challenging moment, there are reasons for optimism.
Global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025. A total of 54 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties during the year, while only 35 countries registered improvements. Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, and El Salvador had the largest one-year score declines, while Syria, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, and Gabon recorded the largest gains. Three countries—Bolivia, Fiji, and Malawi—improved from Partly Free to Free status thanks to competitive elections, growing judicial independence, and the strengthening of the rule of law.
Among countries rated Free, the United States, Bulgaria, and Italy have experienced the year’s largest declines. In the United States, an escalation in both legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people’s ability to engage in free expression, and the new administration’s moves to undermine anticorruption safeguards all contributed to the negative score change. The United States lost 3 points on the report’s 100-point scale, bringing its net decline since 2005 to 12 points, more than any other country rated Free during the same period except for Nauru and Bulgaria.
Although many rights and liberties have been diminished over the last two decades, media freedom, freedom of personal expression, and due process have suffered the heaviest impacts. Coups, armed conflicts, attacks on democratic institutions by elected leaders, and intensified repression by authoritarian regimes have been the main drivers of deterioration during this 20-year period.
Since 2005, the group of countries with Partly Free status has shrunk substantially. Nineteen Partly Free countries have dropped to Not Free, swelling the ranks of the world’s autocracies, which have become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad. Democratic governments have long worked together to counter the spread of authoritarian rule. But in recent years, European countries have sharply reduced their funding for foreign democracy aid. And in 2025, the US administration abruptly canceled most foreign aid programs, began to disengage from international organizations, and refrained from condemning fraudulent elections—effectively abandoning long-standing principles of its foreign policy. As democracies move further away from their traditional role as defenders of freedom, the world could face a dangerous future led by emboldened autocrats.
Most democracies remain resilient in the face of daunting challenges. Despite internal pressures and threats from foreign powers, democracies continue to demonstrate that their domestic political systems are responsive and capable of course correction. Of the 87 countries rated Free in 2005, a total of 76—more than 85 percent—have remained Free throughout the two-decade period of global decline. Moreover, new democracies have repeatedly taken root under difficult circumstances, and aspirations for democracy routinely find popular support in even the most repressive environments.
Source: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/freedom-world-2026-growing-shadow-autocracy
