Restrictions to freedom of expression as democracy loses ground
University of Gothenburg
The wave of democratic backsliding, or autocratization, has been ongoing for 25 years and shows no sign of slowing down, according to the report, authored by a team lead by professor Staffan I Lindberg at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg.
More countries are autocratizing
45 countries are autocratizing in 2024, an increase from only twelve countries 20 years ago, or 42 countries last year. Many are influential regional powers with large populations, such as Argentina, India, Indonesia, and Mexico.
“But Western Europe and North America are not immune. Persistent declines in several countries over the past few years – even if it is gradual – start adding up,” says Staffan I Lindberg.
Freedom of Expression Affected
Among the top declining indicators that V-Dem measures, the ones relating to freedom of expression are affected the most. They include for example media freedom, harassment of journalists, and freedom of discussion. Freedom of expression is deteriorating in 44 countries in 2024 – a quarter of all the countries in the world – the highest recorded so far, and up from 35 last year.
“Freedom of expression is often first to be attacked during autocratization, and the data shows that government efforts at censoring the media is the preferred weapon of choice against democracy in the 45 autocratizing countries. Adding to this, half of all autocratizing countries increasingly use government disinformation to shape public opinion,” says Staffan I Lindberg.
Polarization is increasing in a quarter of all countries in the world. More than half of all countries affected by increasing political polarization are democracies.
Any good news?
Democracy levels are rising in 19 countries. Twelve of the current democratizers started as autocracies, and nine of them transitioned to democracy. The report also finds that autocratization can be halted and reversed, which is currently the case in ten countries, among them Brazil and Poland.
Among the countries improving on democracy levels, the report lists three new countries: Ecuador, Poland and Sri Lanka. Ecuador is also one of the countries that made a democratic turnaround and reversed an ongoing autocratization process.
Introducing a Democracy Watchlist
The report launches a watchlist of countries showing early signs of improving or declining democracy to keep an eye on in the near future. Among the seven countries showing signs of deterioration are Slovakia, Slovenia and Cyprus.
Even if events in 2025 are not included in the V-Dem data the report builds on, adding to the bleak picture is the recent events in the USA.
“The USA now seems to be heading towards a transition away from democracy under President Trump. In my view, the reverberations of this are and will be enormous across the world,” says Staffan I Lindberg.
For more information
The Report “25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped?” is available for download at 12:00 CET, March 13, 2025, at the V-Dem website: www.v-dem.net.
About V-Dem
V-Dem produces the largest global dataset on democracy with over 31 million data points for 202 countries from 1789 to 2024. Involving more than 4,200 scholars and other country experts, V-Dem measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy.
The V-Dem Institute is hosted by the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Read more at www.v-dem.net.
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Anti-pluralist parties threaten academic freedom
2025 Academic Freedom Index Update reveals decline in 34 countries
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Increasing influence of anti-pluralist parties is often associated with lower academic freedom in the respective country. This is one of the findings of the latest Academic Freedom Index (AFI) which is being released March 13, 2025. Scholars at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) publish the index every year in collaboration with colleagues at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg. It covers 179 countries across the world.
This year’s Academic Freedom Index reveals that eight countries covered by the index have statistically and substantially higher levels of academic freedom in 2024 compared to ten years ago, while the scores in 34 countries or territories have declined.
Among the countries where the decline in academic freedom was statistically and substantially significant, there are several democracies, such as Argentina, Finland, Greece, Israel, Portugal, and the United States, to name a few examples. In Austria and Germany, the decline of academic freedom was also clearly measurable but in these two cases, the drop remains small and is not yet substantially significant, according to the authors of the report.
While academic freedom continues to be much better protected in democracies than in autocracies, these examples illustrate that academic freedom can come under pressure in democracies as well. Therefore, this year’s report on the Academic Freedom Index zooms in on countries that hold multiparty elections.
Electoral success of anti-pluralist parties as a driver
The 2025 AFI Update explores the electoral success of anti-pluralist parties as a plausible factor that can drive the decline of academic freedom. Covering a period of 50 years, the data in the report shows the following correlation: Countries where anti-pluralist parties have little-to-no political influence tend to have high levels of academic freedom, while academic freedom typically withers where anti-pluralists are influential.
However, the presence of anti-pluralist parties in the opposition does not appear to be a salient explanation for academic freedom decline; more specifically, academic freedom is at risk when anti-pluralist parties join the government.
Spotlight on Argentina, Poland and the United States
By delving into three cases – Argentina, Poland, and the United States – the AFI Update highlights how anti-pluralist parties undermine academic freedom once they are in power. In all three cases, anti-pluralist politicians in government sought control over academia using similar methods, particularly by reducing institutional autonomy, the freedom to teach, and defunding or attacking research that contradicts a national or state-level government’s political vision. A particularly noteworthy decline was recorded in Argentina, where the AFI score dropped from the very high value of 0.97 to only 0.69 within just one year after (on the scale 0-1, low to high). The case of Poland, on the other hand, highlights that academic freedom declines can be stopped when anti-pluralist parties lose power. Poland once had the excellent AFI score of 0.98 in 2014, that is prior to the 2015 parliamentary and presidential elections. It then reached a low point in 2022, with an AFI point estimate of 0.73, but after the 2023 parliamentary elections, academic freedom in the country has recovered and was now assessed with 0.87 on the AFI scale.
Data
This year’s Academic Freedom Index Update is based on data from V-Dem’s version 15 release, which draws on assessments made by 2,363 country experts from around the world. The data cover the period from 1900 to 2024. All data are publicly available and include a total of more than one million data points at the coder level. The aggregate index is composed of five indicators, namely the freedom to research and teach; the freedom of academic exchange and dissemination; the institutional autonomy of universities; campus integrity; and the freedom of academic and cultural expression.
Open Access and Visualization
The data used for the 2025 AFI Update are available open access to facilitate further studies. Please also visit the website academic-freedom-index.net, where you will find an interactive visualization of the data, country profiles, and information on the index project. Easy-to-use graphing tools are also available for anyone interested; they can be consulted by researchers, students, university administrators, research funders, and policy-makers.
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