Countries worldwide by regime type 2024| ��ƽ��

Number of countries worldwide from 1990 to 2024, by regime type

Regime type	Liberal democracies	Electoral democracies	Electoral autocracies	Closed autocracies
2024	29	59	60	31
2023	31	59	55	34
2022	34	56	56	33
2021	34	58	57	30
2020	35	58	62	24
2019	38	55	64	22
2018	38	56	64	21
2017	39	57	61	22
2016	38	58	60	23
2015	40	54	62	23
2014	40	52	63	22
2013	40	52	64	23
2012	44	50	65	20
2011	44	49	64	22
2010	44	49	62	22
2009	45	45	65	23
2008	44	46	65	23
2007	43	47	63	25
2006	42	51	62	22
2005	42	52	58	25
2004	41	53	55	27
2003	40	53	55	28
2002	39	49	61	27
2001	39	47	56	35
2000	39	46	57	35
1999	38	47	59	33
1998	36	48	62	30
1997	36	46	62	31
1996	36	44	63	29
1995	33	45	59	36
1994	33	44	58	39
1993	33	42	52	46
1992	31	37	58	48
1991	31	34	54	53
1990	29	33	53	56

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Release date

April 2025

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Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

1990 to 2024

Supplementary notes

The V-Dem Institute defines the different regimes as follows:
Closed autocracy: citizens do not have the right to choose either the chief executive of the government or the legislature through multi-party elections.

Electoral autocracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature through multi-party elections; but they lack some freedoms, such as the freedoms of association or expression that make the elections meaningful, free, and fair.

Electoral democracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature in meaningful, free and fair, and multi-party elections.

Liberal democracy: electoral democracy and citizens enjoy individual and minority rights, are equal before the law, and the actions of the executive are constrained by the legislative and the courts.

Citation formats

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years later, there was high optimism about the future of the world, underlined by the increasing number of democracies. However, since 2012, the number of liberal democracies decreased. Moreover, the number of closed autocracies increased, showing a democratic decline worldwide over the past ten years. Still, there are more democracies today than 100 years ago.

More than two thirds live in an autocratic state

The sheer number of democracies only gives a limited picture of the development of democracy worldwide, as it includes states from India and China to countries with small populations such as Nauru and Tuvalu. Another way of looking at the state of democracy is the share of the world's population living in democracies. In 2024, less than one third of the global population was living in a democratic country. One reason for this is that both China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, are classified as autocracies.

Europe is the region with the highest number of democracies

In Europe, 17 out of 41 countries were ranked as liberal democracies in 2024, while 19 came under the category electoral democracies. However, the number of democracies declined over the past decade, with 28 liberal democracies in the region in 2009. Meanwhile, in Asia, only eleven out of 48 countries were either electoral or liberal democracies.