Politoblog

The 10th of March was probably a date you had circled in your calendars for several months now. It, of course, marked the date of the much-anticipated V-Dem Democracy Report 2021. If you weren’t as excited about its publication as I was, let me fill you in. V-Dem is an independent research institute that measures levels of democracy around the world. This year, its Democracy Report was entitled "Autocratisation Turns Viral." Not exactly the good news democracy-fans were hoping for. This year's V-Dem Democracy Report opened with heart-warming statements such as “another year of decline for liberal democracy” and “pandemic backsliding looms”. It wasn’t a huge surprise to anyone familiar with trends in democratisation, which granted is perhaps fewer people than I am making out. Organisations that measure global levels of democracy have been indicating a global decline for over a decade, and the pandemic, while perhaps not the final nail in democracy’s coffin, hasn’t done wor...