New Books Network A Year of Autocratization: Steep Declines in Democracy Registered in 2025 V-Dem Report
Mar 22, 2026
Paul Friesen, a Cornell researcher who analyzes V-Dem survey data, and Kenneth Roberts, a Cornell comparative politics professor, unpack the V-Dem 2025 findings. They discuss the dramatic one-year U.S. decline and which institutions drove it. They trace global backsliding and spotlight countries slipping or improving. They end by flagging signs of institutional and societal pushback to watch in the year ahead.
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Unprecedented One-Year Democratic Plunge In The U.S.
- V-Dem recorded an unprecedented 18-point one-year drop for the United States in 2025, moving its liberal democracy score to 0.57.
- That single-year plunge is larger than any U.S. decline in recent decades and nearly double the worst one-year drop Hungary experienced during its long backsliding.
Legislature Deference Drove Much Of The U.S. Decline
- V-Dem's index bundles legislature, courts, elections, media, and civil society; the biggest U.S. decline in 2025 was the legislature's independence.
- Republicans' congressional majorities largely deferred to the executive, limiting investigations and checks while courts, especially lower courts, resisted some executive actions.
Courts And Clean 2024 Elections Kept The U.S. Above Autocracy
- Courts and elections remain relative bulwarks: federal district courts often constrained executive actions, keeping the U.S. above the electoral autocracy threshold.
- Because the 2024 election was clean, the electoral indicator is a lagging factor sustaining the U.S. classification for now.