Worldwide Decline of Freedom Outweighs Improvements

Democratic watchdog organization Freedom House has released its annual ranking of the world's most free and most suppressed nations. The report is considered a key barometer for global democracy and this year's edition found that global freedom has declined for the 19th year straight. While 2022 had been heralded as a “possible turning point” since about as many countries showed improvements as marked declines, 2023 saw a new low of nations bettering their freedom prospects - only 21 - while 2024 saw a high 60 countries decreasing.

In report states that in a year of elections, more than 40 percent of the countries and territories where national polls happened last year, candidates and polling places were attacked, sometimes seriously, or post-election protests were suppressed with force.

A total of 195 countries and 15 territories were analyzed on their levels of access to political rights and civil liberties, before being categorized as either “free”, “partly free” or “not free”. While democracy has been in decline for nearly two decades, the global landscape has improved since the report was first published 51 years ago. Back then, 44 out of 148 countries were counted as "free", versus 83 out of 195 today.