ƽ

World Governments

Over Half of Governments Are Democracies

The most recent estimates from the aggregated by Pew Research show that over half of countries in the world are now democracies, a major shift from forty years ago. Back in 1976, CSP estimates that 62 percent of governments were autocracies while just a quarter of countries had democratic systems.

After World War II, the world's governing systems looked different from where they stood in 1976 and 2017. Around seventy years ago, there was a more even divide between autocratic, democratic, and a mix of those two systems of government. The end of the Cold War acted as another inflection point. After the Cold War, there was an uptick in global democracy as Soviet-bloc states and the Soviet Union broke apart in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Polity is CSP’s ongoing project that examines six indicators when evaluating whether a country is autocratic or democratic, looking at everything from political participation to checks on executive power. Each country that has over 500,000 citizens gets a score. There were 167 countries in the report.

Description

This chart shows the share of countries under each regime type, 1946-2017.

Opinion on democracy as superior form of government in Poland 1992-2024
UK government spending forecast 2019-2031
Premium statistics
Top channels by share of the ad spend invested by Brazil's federal government H1 2026
Premium statistics
Opinion of Brazilians on democracy and dictatorship 1989-2024
Premium statistics
Latin America: support for democracy 1995-2023
Premium statistics
Budget of the U.S. government in FY 2025, by agency

Any more questions?

Get in touch with us quickly and easily.
We are happy to help!

Do you still have questions?

Feel free to contact us anytime using our contact form or visit our FAQ page.

ƽ Content & Design

Need infographics, animated videos, presentations, data research or social media charts?