Understanding the Global Democratic Decline. Case Study: The United States of America

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the global democratic decline and examines specific indicators and qualitative data released by major research bodies around the world (Center for the Future of Democracy, Freedom House, The Economist Intelligence Unit, Idea International). It focuses on the status of democracy, quality of democracy and citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. An overall conclusion is that the world experiences the worst democratic decline from the past two decades. Furthermore, a closer analysis is being completed for the United States of America situation with the purpose of understanding the democratic erosion from 2016-2020. The current research concludes with a series of recommendations regarding the social polarization, the spread of disinformation and the ultraconservative movements, and improvements needed for the overall health of democracy.

Keywords

• democratic erosion
• democracy status
• satisfaction with democracy
• us presidential elections