Flawed elections and armed conflict contributed to the 18th year of democratic decline. But by drawing strength from diversity, protecting dissent, and building international coalitions to support their own norms and values, democratic forces can still reverse the long decline in global freedom.
Key Findings
Global freedom declined for the 18th consecutive year in 2023. The breadth and depth of the deterioration were extensive. Political rights and civil liberties were diminished in 52 countries, while only 21 countries made improvements. Flawed elections and armed conflict contributed to the decline, endangering freedom and causing severe human suffering.
Widespread problems with elections, including violence and manipulation, drove deterioration in rights and freedoms. Ecuador was downgraded from Free to Partly Free status because its elections were disrupted by violent criminal organizations, which killed several state officials and political candidates. In Cambodia, Guatemala, Poland, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, incumbents tried to control electoral competition, hinder their political opponents, or prevent them from taking power after election day. While Thailand edged over the line from Not Free to Partly Free thanks to more competitive elections, a military-drafted constitution allowed unelected entities to distort the subsequent government-formation process. Military forces also ousted the elected government in Niger, leading to the second-largest score decline of the year, and adding another case to the wave of coups in the Sahel region of Africa that began in 2020.
Armed conflicts and threats of authoritarian aggression made the world less safe and less democratic. Around the world, violent conflict—often driven by authoritarian aggression—caused death and destruction and imperiled freedom. Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory that has long received its own assessment in this report, suffered the year’s largest recorded decline in freedom and moved from Partly Free to Not Free after a blockade and military offensive by the Azerbaijani regime led to the capitulation of its separatist government and the de facto expulsion of its ethnic Armenian population. The Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continued for a second year, further degrading basic rights in occupied areas and prompting more intense repression in Russia itself. Civilians also bore the brunt of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, a civil war stemming from the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, and brutal fighting between rival military and paramilitary factions in Sudan.
The denial of political rights and civil liberties in disputed territories dragged down freedom in the associated countries, including some democracies. People living in disputed territories without access to self-determination were especially vulnerable to abuses by authorities with no meaningful checks on their power. Beijing continued to clamp down on the few freedoms available to residents of Hong Kong and Tibet, while the Russian regime advanced its efforts to repress vulnerable populations in Crimea and enlist local inhabitants in its war of aggression. Repression in disputed territories was largely perpetrated by autocratic regimes, but the democratically elected governments of Israel and India were complicit in violating basic rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and in Indian-administered Kashmir, respectively. These harmful policies were intertwined with threats to democratic principles and institutions within the larger countries.
Pluralism is under attack but remains a source of strength for all societies. The rejection of pluralism—the peaceful coexistence of people with different political ideas, religions, or ethnic identities—by authoritarian leaders and armed groups produced repression, violence, and a steep decline in overall freedom in 2023. These trends are creating an environment that is unfavorable to democracy just as the world enters a consequential year of elections. But by drawing strength from diversity, protecting dissent, and building international coalitions to support their own norms and values, democratic forces can still reverse the long decline in global freedom.
Introduction
Global freedom declined for the 18th consecutive year in 2023. The scope and scale of deterioration were extensive, affecting one-fifth of the world’s population. Almost everywhere, the downturn in rights was driven by attacks on pluralism—the peaceful coexistence of people with different political ideas, religions, or ethnic identities—that harmed elections and sowed violence. These intensifying assaults on a core feature of democracy reinforce the urgent need to support the groups and individuals, including human rights defenders and journalists, who are on the front lines of the struggle for freedom worldwide.
A total of 52 countries suffered declines over the past year, while only 21 improved. The manipulation of elections was among the leading causes of global erosion in freedom. In Cambodia, Guatemala, Poland, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, incumbents took steps to prevent the political opposition from competing on an even playing field. Leaders in El Salvador and Venezuela bent the rules to ensure their own victories in planned contests. Ecuador’s elections were marred by widespread violence, including the murders of several state officials and political candidates. As a result, that country declined from Free to Partly Free status. Thailand inched up from Not Free to Partly Free thanks to highly competitive national elections, but a military-drafted constitution allowed unelected forces to distort the government-formation process and box out the leading opposition party.
Coups continued to obliterate democratic institutions and strip away people’s right to choose their leaders. In July, Niger became the sixth country in the Sahel region of Africa—after Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Sudan—to experience a coup since 2020. A military junta ousted the democratically elected government, resulting in an 18-point decline on Freedom in the World’s 100-point scale. Freedoms also continued to deteriorate in Burkina Faso, which suffered two coups in 2022.
https://flo.uri.sh/story/2164104/embed?auto=1
Armed conflict over disputed territories unleashed devastating violence and further degraded political rights and civil liberties. Nagorno-Karabakh experienced the most precipitous score decline of the year, losing 40 points after nearly its entire population of 120,000 ethnic Armenians was forced to flee the enclave under intense pressure from Azerbaijan’s military. Hamas’s massive terrorist raid into Israel on October 7 killed some 1,200 people and destroyed Israelis’ sense of safety in their own homes. Israel’s ensuing military campaign in the Gaza Strip, already among the least free places in the world, had resulted in the deaths of an estimated 22,000 people by year’s end, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, as well as the internal displacement of 1.9 million others.
The global struggle for freedom faces a crucial test in 2024, during which about half of the world’s population will head to the polls and conflicts will continue to rage in Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Ongoing attacks on pluralism have the potential to fuel voter apathy, further division, and even violence, as they undercut the promise that democracy can deliver for everyone and that diversity of political ideas, belief, and ethnicity is a source of strength. If democracies do not respond to these challenges, more of the world’s people will be denied fundamental freedoms in 2025.
There is still a path toward stronger democracies and greater freedom for all. Recognizing that threats to an election can emerge before, during, and even after the day of voting, democratic governments should redouble their commitment to holding free and fair elections at home and supporting the same abroad. Rigged balloting, military coups, and political or disinformation campaigns that promote exclusion should be quickly and widely condemned. Those who claim or come to power through these means should not be recognized as legitimate leaders. On the international stage, democracies should build broad partnerships based on shared principles, and reaffirm the norms of sovereignty and self-determination that are being subverted by authoritarian aggression from China, Iran, Russia, and others. As it has for decades, the United States can play a vital role in the expansion of global freedom. But much depends on whether the November 2024 presidential election reinforces or weakens America’s democratic values, processes, and institutions, along with its will to uphold the cause of democracy around the world.
In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has significantly altered electoral rules in order to overcome a constitutional prohibition on presidential reelection and consolidate political power. In 2021, Bukele appointed new judges to the Supreme Court, which reinterpreted the constitution to permit him to stand for a second consecutive term. In 2023, the government-controlled legislature repealed a ban on modifying the electoral system within a year of an election, and quickly pushed through a reduction in the size of the next Legislative Assembly as well as other changes to voting procedures. These changes were expected to help concentrate power in the hands of Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party and diminish the chances of opposition parties gaining seats in the general elections scheduled for February 2024. El Salvador declined to Partly Free in 2019, during Bukele’s first year in office, and the country’s score has fallen by 24 points over the last decade.
Antidemocratic tactics that target free and fair elections are not always successful in stamping out genuine electoral competition. But long-term manipulation that substantially skews the playing field, particularly by leveraging state resources and media assets, can lead to a situation in which opposition losses reinforce the perceived dominance of an increasingly authoritarian incumbent. This is the pattern that has unfolded in Turkey.
Turkey’s elections have long featured harassment, arrests, and criminal prosecutions of opposition leaders and journalists, as well as media dominance and abuse of state resources by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). In 2023, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in power since 2003, secured another term in office by winning the presidential runoff vote. Despite the fact that the election had to go to a second round and Erdoğan won only by a narrow margin, attention during and after the campaign was focused on the opposition’s shortcomings rather than the country’s many democratic deficits. Ultimately, the failure of opposition forces to win an unfair contest eclipsed major systemic abuses like restrictions on freedom of expression and the criminal prosecution of political opponents that are commonly employed by the government.
In a rare bright spot among the year’s contests, the outcome of Poland’s parliamentary elections showed that opposition forces can win even in the face of electoral manipulation. A coalition of opposition parties was able to unseat the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which used government-controlled media and state resources to gain an advantage.
Just two months before the elections, the PiS government passed a law that would allow it, for the first time in the country’s history, to hold a national referendum simultaneously with the parliamentary elections. The referendum was carefully designed to aid PiS’s campaign. First, PiS claimed, without evidence, that the inflammatory proposals presented to voters—such as “admitting thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa” and “selling off state resources to foreign entities”—were actual policies being pursued by opposition parties. Second, the referendum allowed supporters of PiS to get around campaign finance laws by donating to both the party’s electoral campaign and the referendum campaign, which amplified the same themes. Lastly, election observers noted that the referendum compromised the secrecy of the ballot. Voters who wished to boycott the referendum—and invalidate it through low turnout—had to actively refuse to accept the relevant ballot paper and have their refusal recorded by election administrators. The opposition won a competitive contest, and Poland remains Free, but the preelection manipulation resulted in a decline in its freedom score.