At a time when experts are warning of unprecedented democratic backsliding in the United States under the second Trump administration, how should people in the United States and around the world understand the erosion of democratic practices? In what areas is America backsliding the most, and how do these areas connect with each other? This report introduces The Century Foundation’s United States Democracy Meter, a new tool that seeks to answer these questions by assessing the health of democracy in the United States.
The tool deploys a 100-point scale across twenty-three subquestions to evaluate the change in the quality of American democracy. It starts with a retroactive evaluation of U.S. democracy in 2024, which produced a mediocre but still solid score of 79/100. The Century Foundation’s 2025 evaluation finds that American democracy is already collapsing—the Democracy Meter rates the United States at 57/100, a 28 percent drop in just one year. In the first year of Trump 2.0, the United States went from being a passing if imperfect democracy to behaving like an authoritarian state: breaking the law, ignoring court rulings, engaging in grand corruption, targeting critics for persecution, and conducting a campaign against immigrants, in particular, that flagrantly violates civil rights. Crucially, elections are still free, providing for the time being an avenue to reverse the democratic decline.
Other established indices have also found the United States to be gradually declining over the past twenty years. But they’ve never shown a sharp unraveling of U.S. democracy during this period, and haven’t been updated for 2025. Freedom House’s Freedom in the World index rated the United States a 93/100 in 2006, the first year that project used a 100-point scale. V-Dem rated the country a 0.81/1.00 that year on their Liberal Democracy Index. In last year’s ratings, covering 2024, Freedom House rated the United States 83/100, and V-Dem rated it 0.75/1.00. Not since 1966 has V-Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index had a score for the United States that was comparable to Century’s for 2025; that score was made right after the Voting Rights Act was passed (Freedom in the World did not begin until 1973). Our analysis suggests U.S. democracy is at greater risk than at any time since Watergate, and it may even be approaching its pre-Civil Rights Movement lowpoint.
The Century Foundation’s new Democracy Meter builds on the thinking behind indices such as those of Freedom House and V-Dem, but pioneers a simpler approach that is potentially more useful for American policymakers. These other indices examine democracy in countries across the globe based on hundreds of questions and subquestions, and their annual assessments of the United States are one country report among many. Moreover, many of the countries compared in these reports do not have the strong history of liberal, democratic institutions that the United States has, making it harder to pick out changes within the U.S. system that are dramatic when measured against American history, but perhaps less so compared to all other countries in the world. Tracking America’s changes based on a smaller number of variables allows for a tighter focus on America’s specific problems.
The Century tool breaks scoring down into four categories totaling 100 possible points: State Institutions (30 points), Nonstate Sectors (30 points), Rights (25 points), and Elections (15 points).
American democracy is at greater risk than at any time since Watergate, and it may even be approaching its pre-Civil Rights Movement lowpoint.
The results reveal that the core problem for the United States is aggrandizement of the executive branch’s powers at the expense of and with the acquiescence of Republican-controlled Congress, supported by a compliant and highly partisan Supreme Court. More than half of the overall drop in the score was in the evaluation of the category State Institutions, which covers the executive branch, Congress, the judiciary, and grand corruption. This category fell from 22/30 points to 10/30.
Entities in the category Nonstate Sectors, which include the media and civil society, are under severe pressure in the United States but remain relatively resilient. The score in this category declined from 26/30 to 20/30. The Rights score dropped from 19/25 to 15/25, reflecting the fact that those rights, particularly of immigrants and outspoken opponents of the government, are being threatened by the federal government in new and dangerous ways. The only category that did not have a decline was Elections, with the score holding at 12/15 both years, as the lack of federal authority over election administration has so far prevented the Trump administration from changing the rules of the game. Elections can still be a means of contesting and changing power.
The sharp drop in U.S. democracy this year is frightening, but it is reversible. The most pressing question is how to defend the remaining space and mechanisms for peaceful political change, and ensure that if and when it comes, political leaders have the mandate, the bravery, and the imagination to address the structural weaknesses that got us here.
Purpose and Methodology
The Democracy Meter’s primary author, Nate Schenkkan, designed the criteria and did the scoring, in close coordination with project director Thanassis Cambanis. Century experts assessed the scores, and then a panel composed of three Century staff confirmed the final scores. The final scores are the Century Foundation’s.
The Democracy Meter uses a liberal democratic definition of democracy: one in which citizens choose their representatives through free and fair elections, executive power is constrained by the judiciary and Congress, nonstate sectors operate independently and in ways that contribute to democratic expression, civil rights are protected against gross interference, and individuals have due process and are equal before the law. This definition is relatively “thick” in that it goes well beyond elections, but it is also relatively “thin” in that it does not encompass the full range of rights recognized under international law, or the ways in which a state may fail to fulfill its positive obligations to support those rights.
The varying possible point totals in each of the tool’s categories reflect the greater weight that we give to State Institutions and Nonstate Sectors (each with 30 possible points) than for Rights (with 25 possible points), and Elections (with 15 possible points). Each of these categories has between three and eight subquestions that assess different aspects of their parent categories from the perspective of liberal democracy; there are twenty-three subquestions in total. (For the questions used for the scoring and the results, see Numerical Scores, 2024 and 2025 and United States Democracy Meter Scoring Rubric)
The State Institutions category evaluates how the executive, Congressional, and judicial branches of government in the United States operate. Because the tool is designed for thinking about liberal democracy, it assumes that the executive will seek to accrue power at the expense of other branches, and that, in a well-functioning democracy, other branches, by definition, will check executive overreach. Also included within it is one question about grand corruption, to reflect the potential threat to democracy of large-scale bribery of officials.
The Nonstate Sectors category evaluates the news media and social media, civil society and the private sector, and higher education. Again reflecting the liberal democratic perspective, a high value is placed on the independence and vibrancy of these sectors.
Rights evaluates a narrow band of rights falling under civil rights and equality before the law. This narrow definition is chosen for the sake of simplicity and in keeping with the liberal democratic approach. Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and protection from arbitrary detention are core rights without which no other rights can be fulfilled. Likewise, due process and equal treatment undergird the opportunity to achieve all other rights in practice.
Finally, Elections evaluates basic features of a functioning electoral system: Are votes counted accurately? Are there undue constraints on the ability to cast a vote? Does the electoral system’s structure permit new entrants, competition, and representation? This category’s conception avoids the common shorthand of “free and fair” for thinking about elections, and focuses on the key elements that are specific to the electoral system rather than in other rights or in nonstate sectors.
Findings
2024 Assessment
For the full analysis, see United States Democracy Meter 2024 Scoring.
The 2024 evaluation was done retroactively, meaning the assessment was prepared in late 2025 rather than in 2024. All effort was made to only include events taking place in calendar year 2024, and to avoid recency bias by highlighting or foreshadowing events that would take place in 2025.
- The assessment rated U.S. democracy 79/100, broken down across the main categories as follows:
- State Institutions: 22/30
- Nonstate Sectors: 26/30
- Rights: 19/25
- Elections: 12/15
FIGURE 1
As a percentage of the possible total, State Institutions was the worst-performing category in 2024 and the only category to underperform the overall rating. Congress and the judiciary performed notably poorly. Congress’s relatively low score (7/10 across two questions) was due to a consistent pattern of failing to hold the executive branch accountable and of failing to fulfill its core functions, like appropriations and passing legislation. The judiciary (3/5 on its only question) did even more poorly due to its high partisanship and lack of independence, especially at the Supreme Court. Grand corruption (3/5) was also weak, reflecting ample evidence of high-level corruption and the rollback of legal tools for preventing it.
The 2024 assessment of Nonstate Sectors found high degrees of independence for both the news media/social media and the civil society sectors, but registered concerns about vibrancy and sustainability in the media (3/4) as older business models had collapsed. It also noted problems with responsibility and accountability of news media and social media as the media sphere became increasingly polarized and Elon Musk shifted the X platform to the right (3/4). Higher education (4/6 across two questions) was the other sector of notable concern in 2024, as universities came under politicized attack from multiple directions, and many administrations failed to withstand the onslaught.
In Rights, the 2024 assessment noted longstanding structural problems with arbitrary arrest and detention, due process, and equal treatment divided along racial and class lines that dragged scores down. Freedom of expression received a 4/5 due to increasing fears of mobbing and targeted social media harassment that led to a chilling effect in public speech. Freedom of assembly also received a 4/5. The United States continued to have strong protections for protest, and there were thousands of assemblies in 2024. However, there was also increasingly aggressive policing throughout the year, particularly against protests over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Finally, the Elections category had a perfect score for vote counting (5/5), but the score for access to voting (4/5) reflected obstacles many states have put before voters, especially since the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. The score for the structure of the electoral system (3/5) reflects the fact that the U.S. electoral framework is heavily biased toward the incumbent two-party system due to lax restrictions on campaign finance, gerrymandering, and the use of first-past-the-post single-member districts.
2025 Assessment
For the full analysis, see United States Democracy Meter 2025 Scoring.
The 2025 assessment scored the United States lower in three out of four major categories and seventeen out of twenty-three subcategories. No subcategories improved. The overall score dropped from 79 to 57, a change of 22 points, or 28 percent of the previous score. The U.S. government has become more authoritarian in its intentions and its practices, even if it cannot always achieve its authoritarian goals.
The U.S. government has become authoritarian in its intentions and its practices, even if it cannot always achieve its authoritarian goals.
The biggest decline in scores took place in State Institutions (22/30 → 10/30). The category was already the weakest in the 2024 assessment, but it collapsed in 2025. Congress and the judiciary, already weak as noted above, failed to check the executive branch when it disregarded constitutional checks and balances, ignored court rulings, and engaged in grand corruption—an unprecedented breakdown of the law and the constitutional order in the United States. The purge of the U.S. federal government in 2025 resulted in overt politicization of what had been a nonpartisan civil service and the dismantling of independent institutions. The core problem for U.S. democracy is that the executive has aggrandized power beyond what a liberal democracy can sustain, supported by a highly partisan Supreme Court and with Congress unwilling to intervene.
Nonstate Sectors (26/30 → 20/30) declined significantly, albeit far less than State Institutions. Although news media, social media, and civil society have come under massive pressure from the government, they still have a measure of independence and vibrancy. Civil society organizations, in particular, have not been co-opted or coerced into silence. Higher education institutions, however, have suffered much more. Universities had already been severely damaged by the fallout over their handling of protests against the genocide in Gaza in 2023–24, and in 2025 they were further battered by the administration’s weaponization of antisemitism and use of federal funding leverage against them. The fear is that if the executive continues to press its attack on news media and civil society, these other sectors will fold under the pressure as well.
Rights (19/25 → 15/25) declined due to attacks on freedom of expression, especially for critics of the government, and immigration enforcement measures that disregarded the rights of immigrants and violated due process.
Elections (12/15 → 12/15) was the only category to hold steady across all three subquestions used to assess it. The explicitly decentralized nature of U.S. elections, which are the responsibility of the states and not the federal government, has protected them, for now, from the harshest effects of an authoritarian government in federal office. At the time of publication, the current government can still be removed through voting. There are significant potential concerns in 2026, though, as the administration promotes false claims of voter fraud as a justification for asserting federal control over elections.
Alarming but Not Irreversible
The swift decline of U.S. democracy this year is alarming. It is the result of choices by the right wing of American politics, which is committed to transforming the state from the inside out, and complacency, particularly from elite institutions, about the risk of authoritarianism. Importantly, however, the right wing has not yet succeeded in consolidating an authoritarian system. The United States’ size and diversity, tradition of independent civil society, its wealth, and its decentralized electoral system all make it difficult to keep power.
The typical post-World War II democracies to which the United States is most often compared—Canada, Japan, and those in Europe—have not had these sorts of democratic declines. Other less healthy democracies have experienced similar collapses, but only after coups, attempted coups, or major shocks. The democratic decline in the United States over the last year is remarkable in modern history.
The first priority for action is to defend the areas that are still robust, and will be needed for democracy to make a comeback. Media, civil society, and the protection of individual rights are essential to halting and then reversing democratic decline. For the opposition to have a chance of winning power, the electoral system needs to be sustained. These institutions need to be protected through legal campaigns, but also through protests, donations, and individual choices.
The second priority—possible to pursue if there is a change in political power—must be to remedy the gaping structural weaknesses in the U.S. system. The executive’s ability to enact such rapid and extralegal changes in such a short time has been conditional, first and foremost, on the Supreme Court’s highly partisan tilt and the Republican Congress’s abdication of its role. Neither branch has acted to check the executive, and have mostly supported it running roughshod over the law and the constitutional order. When even federal judges are no longer extending to the government the “presumption of regularity,” and are expressing frustration that the Supreme Court operates without clear reasoning, the system is broken.1
Democracy is not self-implementing. Without decisive action to address these issues, it will remain vulnerable to concerted efforts to undermine it. The first responsibility is to defend democracy, and the second one is to rebuild it.
This report launches The Century Foundation’s United States Democracy Meter.
Header Caption: Federal agents stand guard as they are confronted by residents after making a stop while driving in a caravan through the Brighton Park neighborhood on November 6, 2025, in Chicago. Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Notes
- Lawrence Hurley, “In Rare Interviews, Federal Judges Criticize Supreme Court’s Handling of Trump Cases,” NBC News, September 4, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-trump-cases-federal-judges-criticize-rcna221775; Ryan Goodman et al., “The “Presumption of Regularity” in Trump Administration Litigation,” Just Security, November 202, 2025, https://www.justsecurity.org/120547/presumption-regularity-trump-administration-litigation/.
