What Is Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a way of governing that concentrates power in one leader or a small group and removes the checks that let citizens and institutions push back. Elections may still happen, but courts, legislatures, the press, and opponents lose the ability to limit the people in charge. Britannica describes authoritarian regimes as systems that “concentrate power in the hands of a single leader or a small elite and do not afford their citizens civil liberties or political rights.”
Democracies now tend to erode step by step rather than fall in a single coup, as Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue in How Democracies Die (Penguin Random House).
Key facts
- The world had 92 autocracies and 87 democracies at the end of 2025, by the V-Dem Institute’s count (V-Dem).
- V-Dem’s Liberal Democracy Index for the U.S. fell 24% in 2025, to its lowest level since 1965 (V-Dem data).
- V-Dem now classes the U.S. as an electoral democracy, no longer a liberal democracy (V-Dem).
- Freedom House still rates the U.S. “Free,” with a score of 81 of 100, down from 84 (Freedom House).
- V-Dem’s election measures held steady, because its 2025 scores for election quality still reflect the 2024 vote. The decline came from weaker checks on the president and less free expression.
V-Dem tracks the direction a country is moving as well as where it stands, and it calls a country moving away from democracy an autocratizer. The rest of this page is about those measurements and the warning signs scholars use, not labels.
How Scholars Measure Authoritarianism
The two most cited scorekeepers are the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, which rates 179 countries using surveys of country experts, and Freedom House, a Washington nonprofit that scores political rights and civil liberties. Both use expert judgment, and both moved in the same direction for the United States in 2025. A third, the World Justice Project’s index, surveys households as well as experts, and our rule of law explainer charts its U.S. scores.
V-Dem scored the United States 0.57 on its Liberal Democracy Index for 2025, back to its 1965 level, the year V-Dem’s report says most regard as the start of “a real, modern democracy in the USA.”
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| 1965 | 0.57 |
| 1975 | 0.72 |
| 1990 | 0.8 |
| 2000 | 0.81 |
| 2015 | 0.85 |
| 2020 | 0.73 |
| 2024 | 0.75 |
| 2025 | 0.57 |
Source: V-Dem Institute, dataset v16 (March 2026), via Our World in Data. Scores rounded to two decimals; 1 is the most democratic.
In one year, the U.S. fell from 20th to 51st of 179 countries on the index. V-Dem’s 2026 report calls the speed “unprecedented in modern history” and moved the country out of its top category, liberal democracy, for the first time since 1968.
- −24%
- drop in the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index score, 2024 to 2025 (V-Dem)
- 20th → 51st
- U.S. world rank on the same index, of 179 countries (V-Dem)
- 84 → 81
- U.S. Freedom House score out of 100; status still "Free"
Freedom House saw a smaller drop. Its 2026 report says the year was “characterized by attempts to exert executive authority” in areas from immigration to war powers, and that the administration “withheld funds that Congress had appropriated,” which “tested the ability of the legislative branch to protect its prerogatives” (Freedom House).
What Fell in 2025 and What Held
Elections held steady on V-Dem’s measures. The limits on the president fell hardest.
| Group | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean elections | 0.90 | 0.90 | ±0.00 |
| Rule of law | 0.96 | 0.92 | −0.04 |
| Freedom of association | 0.94 | 0.91 | −0.03 |
| Judicial constraints on the executive | 0.90 | 0.84 | −0.06 |
| Freedom of expression | 0.90 | 0.73 | −0.17 |
| Legislative constraints on the executive | 0.86 | 0.61 | −0.25 |
Source: V-Dem Institute, dataset v16 (March 2026), via Our World in Data. Scores rounded to two decimals.
V-Dem scores election quality only in election years, so its 2025 election measures still describe the 2024 vote, and they held steady. The report says that makes the November 3, 2026 midterms “decisive.” It also found freedom of expression at “its lowest level since the end of WWII” and wrote that the Republican-controlled Congress “seems to have abdicated its constitutional role in favor of the executive branch” (V-Dem).
The Four Warning Signs
In How Democracies Die (2018), Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt drew four warning signs from cases ranging “from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela,” in their publisher’s words (Penguin Random House). The list builds on a “litmus test” by political scientist Juan Linz, which the authors described in a 2016 New York Times essay. The table pairs each sign with a documented U.S. case and what has checked it so far.
Levitsky and Ziblatt's four warning signs, with a U.S. case for each
Source: Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (2018); House Select Committee report (2022); Proclamation 10887; Ex parte Garland (1866); NBC News; V-Dem Democracy Report 2026. The pairing of each sign with a U.S. case is Resist Now's.
The indicators describe behavior, not party or policy, and the authors’ cases include governments of the left and the right, among them Venezuela and Hungary.
Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit, uses a longer list of seven tactics, including politicizing independent institutions and scapegoating vulnerable groups. It stresses that “hard policy fights and battles for political advantage are a normal part of democracy” and that the tactics are what set a would-be authoritarian apart (Protect Democracy). The tactics overlap with other pages here, on propaganda, national emergency powers, and the Insurrection Act.
Where the Checks Stand
Courts have ruled both ways on presidential power since 2025. They have blocked major actions, and the Supreme Court has also widened the president’s power over the executive branch.
Where the Major Tests of Presidential Power Stand
As of October 6, 2026
- Tariffs under emergency law Final ruling, not authorized
Learning Resources v. Trump, February 20, 2026: the emergency law does not authorize tariffs, 6-3. (source)
- Order ending birthright citizenship Final ruling, order blocked
Trump v. Barbara, June 30, 2026: 6-3, the children the order targets are citizens at birth; injunction affirmed. (source)
- Firing independent-agency heads Final ruling, allowed
Trump v. Slaughter, June 29, 2026, 6-3: the FTC's protection of commissioners from removal except for cause "is contrary to the separation of powers." (source)
- Federalizing the Illinois National Guard Blocked by a court
Trump v. Illinois, December 23, 2025: the Court denied a stay, 6-3, concluding that "regular forces" in the call-up law likely means the regular military. (source)
- Contempt over the March 2025 deportation flights In litigation
A judge found probable cause of criminal contempt on April 16, 2025. The full D.C. Circuit heard argument on September 29, 2026 and has not ruled. (source)
- Executive orders against four law firms In litigation
Four district judges held them unconstitutional in 2025. The D.C. Circuit heard the appeal on May 14, 2026, and had not ruled by September 24. (source)
- Comey and James indictments In litigation, dismissed
Dismissed November 24, 2025, because the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed. The attorney general said the department would appeal. (source)
- January 6 pardons Final ruling, not reviewable
Proclamation 10887, January 20, 2025. (source)
Source: Supreme Court opinions; U.S. District Court for D.C. (J.G.G. v. Trump); D.C. Circuit docket; ACLU; NBC News; Federal Register
V-Dem’s report points to Congress and the 2026 midterms as well as the courts. A court rules on one action at a time, often months later, and the pardon power, the Supreme Court held in 1866, “is not subject to legislative control” (Ex parte Garland).
Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism, and Fascism
The three words are often used as if they were the same. They describe different things.
Totalitarianism is the extreme form. Britannica classes as totalitarian the regimes “that use state institutions to brainwash and completely control their populations,” where “no dissent is tolerated.” Its examples include the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and North Korea under the Kim dynasty (Britannica).
Fascism is an ideology, not a type of government. Britannica describes the fascist movements of 1919 to 1945 by their “extreme militaristic nationalism,” “contempt for electoral democracy,” and “belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites” (Britannica). How scholars define it, and how it took power in Italy and Germany, is covered in the fascism explainer.
Electoral autocracy is the most common regime type in the world, by V-Dem’s count. It holds multiparty elections without the freedoms and fair conditions that make them democratic. V-Dem classes Russia, Hungary and Türkiye as electoral autocracies (V-Dem). Related ideologies, such as Christian nationalism, have their own pages here.
The Honest Disagreement
There is real debate about both the measurements and the meaning.
On the measurements. Political scientists Andrew Little and Anne Meng argued in 2024 that most studies of global backsliding rest “largely if not entirely on subjective indicators that rely on expert coder judgment.” Using objective measures, such as how often incumbents lose elections, they found “little evidence of global democratic decline” (PS: Political Science & Politics). They raised the possibility of coder bias. Researchers who help run V-Dem replied in the same journal, defending expert-coded measures and disputing Little and Meng’s data and conclusions (Knutsen and others). Little and Meng themselves allowed that leaders may be using subtler undemocratic tools that objective measures miss.
On the meaning. The Supreme Court has backed broader presidential control of the executive branch. In Trump v. Slaughter (2026) it held that the Federal Trade Commission’s protection of its commissioners from removal except for cause “is contrary to the separation of powers.” Two years earlier, in Trump v. United States, it held that a former president cannot be prosecuted for core official acts. In the January 2025 pardon proclamation, the president described the January 6 prosecutions as “a grave national injustice.” The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 laid out a plan for presidential control of the agencies, and our Project 2025 tracker checks which of its proposals became policy. The case that unelected officials resist elected leaders is covered in the deep state explainer.
V-Dem and Freedom House point to specific actions. Freedom House cites withheld appropriations and pressure on universities, and V-Dem writes that Congress “seems to have abdicated its constitutional role in favor of the executive branch.”
What the Warning Signs Leave Out
- Not every hardball move is authoritarian. Protect Democracy notes that “hard policy fights and battles for political advantage are a normal part of democracy.” The warning signs concern attacks on the rules themselves, on rivals’ right to compete, and on critics’ freedom to speak.
- The indexes are annual and backward-looking. V-Dem’s 2025 scores were published in March 2026. Events since then, including the Supreme Court rulings of June 2026, are not yet in the numbers.
- States matter. Elections are run by states and counties, and state courts and officials have acted as checks, as they did after the 2020 election. A national index can hide wide differences between states.
- A classification is not an endpoint. V-Dem still classes the United States as a democracy. Its report describes a direction of travel, not an outcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the United States considered authoritarian?
No major index classifies it as an autocracy. As of 2026, V-Dem rates it an electoral democracy that is autocratizing, and Freedom House rates it “Free” with 81 of 100 points. Both recorded declines in 2025.
Which countries are authoritarian today?
V-Dem counted 92 autocracies at the end of 2025, home to about 74% of the world’s people. Closed autocracies, which hold no meaningful elections, rose from 22 in 2019 to 35 in 2025.
Is an authoritarian government the same as a dictatorship?
Not every authoritarian government is a closed dictatorship. V-Dem splits autocracies into closed autocracies and electoral autocracies, which hold multiparty elections, and electoral autocracy is the most common regime type in the world. Nicaragua, for example, holds multiparty elections and is among the least democratic states, V-Dem reports.
Can a democracy become authoritarian through elections?
Yes. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that democracy now tends to end not in a coup but through the slow weakening of institutions such as the courts and the press. V-Dem reports that Hungary’s elected government gradually removed checks on the executive after 2010, and it has classed Hungary as an electoral autocracy since 2018.
What You Can Do
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Vote on November 3, 2026, and check your registration now. V-Dem calls the midterms decisive. Vote.gov links to every state’s registration check, and the October 17 No Kings day of action is built around early voting.
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Sign up to be a poll worker. Local election offices recruit them before every election. The Election Assistance Commission lists how to sign up in your state.
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Ask your members of Congress to use their oversight power. V-Dem’s sharpest U.S. decline was in legislative constraints on the president. Ask your representative and senators which hearings they have held and which appropriations they have defended. A president can refuse some requests under executive privilege, but courts have never made that power absolute. Our letter-writing guide walks through it.
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Support independent local news. Freedom of expression was V-Dem’s second-largest decline. A subscription to a local newsroom pays for local reporting.
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Follow the court cases in the ledger above. The full D.C. Circuit heard the deportation-flight contempt question on September 29, 2026, and its ruling will be public.