Democracy is the best system of government for protecting human rights and advancing peace, economic prosperity, and freedom, because it is the only one in which governments are accountable to their people. While no democracy is perfect in practice, the system provides citizens with effective tools for course correction and improvement.
In the more than 50 years since Freedom House began monitoring and quantifying global political rights and civil liberties in the annual Freedom in the World report, there has been ample evidence that popular demand for freedom is strong, and that democratic progress is always possible.
The report has shown that people from every region and culture want to exercise their fundamental rights and are capable of sustaining democratic movements even under extremely difficult circumstances.
However, the possibility of progress does not make it inevitable. In every region of the world, democratic values and institutions are under attack by those who seek unchecked power to advance their own narrow interests. As a consequence, the percentage of people worldwide living in Free countries has been in decline for much of the last two decades.
This decline has resulted in a more hostile environment for individual countries’ democratization efforts and created openings for ambitious illiberal leaders.