U.S. democracy stabilizes
New research finds American democracy has stopped sliding but remains well below pre‑2016 benchmarks—analysts warn the risk of backsliding now looks "baked in." (theguardian.com) Researchers also flag a widespread pool of "democratic neutrality" that lowers resistance to erosion, even as brief online civic‑education interventions are shown to measurably boost pro‑democratic attitudes. (newrepublic.com) (nature.com) (democracywithoutborders.org)
A panel of roughly 600 U.S. political scientists gave the country an average expert score of 57 on a 0–100 democracy scale in Bright Line Watch’s latest survey, down from 67 in December 2024. (newrepublic.com) The V‑Dem Institute’s 2026 Democracy Report says the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index plunged 24% in one year and that the country’s global rank fell from 20th to 51st out of 179 nations. (eurekalert.org) Researchers re‑analysing major surveys (N = 45,095) and running two original surveys (N = 3,039) find “democratic neutrality” is prevalent—about half of Americans express neutrality toward at least one undemocratic practice—and that neutrality predicts candidate preferences as strongly as explicit support for undemocratic measures. (nature.com) A large randomized study across 33 countries with more than 40,000 participants found that even a single three‑minute animated civic‑education video measurably increased support for democracy, improved factual knowledge, and reduced acceptance of authoritarian alternatives. (democracywithoutborders.org) Bright Line Watch’s scholar respondents singled out concrete actions they judged threatening to norms—examples listed include orders to a state attorney general to prosecute political opponents, the shutdown of a federal public‑corruption unit, and pardons for figures tied to January 6. (newrepublic.com) Bright Line Watch reports that expert ratings have “largely stabilized” at these lower levels relative to 2017–24, and its cross‑national comparisons placed the U.S. nearer Mexico (60) and Israel (49) than to Britain (83) or Canada (88) on their 0–100 scale. (newrepublic.com)
