The global erosion of democratic and market economy standards continues. Autocratic regimes further increased their share among the countries surveyed, while rule of law, political freedoms and fair competition continue to be weakened. Economically, there has been no comprehensive recovery following the pandemic and surge in inflation. Growing structural and environmental pressures are intensifying the need for action, which many governments are responding to with less consensus-oriented and cooperative forms of governance.
Looking back on the twenty years of transformation covered by the BTI, the normative goalposts of democracy and a market economy have continued to lose ground. Driven primarily by the goal of staying in power, elected political elites have gradually continued to erode core democratic institutions, while the level of repression under authoritarian rule has continued to rise. Elite failure and abuses of power, the pressure of multiple crises and the resulting demand for greater security, as well as an international environment that stabilizes autocracies, are contributing to democratic regression.
As a result, the global ratio of democracies to autocracies has reversed: whereas 55% of all countries surveyed in the BTI 2006 were democracies, 56% are now ruled autocratically. Two-thirds of these autocracies are highly repressive dictatorships or failing states. The proportion of hard-line autocracies rose to a new high of 38% of all countries surveyed. Two-thirds of the countries surveyed since 2006 are less democratic today than they were twenty years ago.
