Across the world, the progress of democracy has slowed, if not reversed. According to Freedom House’s ratings, 23 countries became less free between 2013 and 2024—including India, Turkey, Hungary, and Indonesia—while only seven became more free. What can be done to curb global democratic backsliding?

Researchers link a variety of factors to democratic health, from the presence of free and fair elections and the rule of law to widespread economic opportunity, freedom of expression, and a healthy civil society. But where should those who wish to promote democracy—governments, philanthropists, or other social sector actors—focus their efforts? How can they distinguish causation from correlation? How might they find leading indicators that can serve as a warning for future backsliding (and, therefore, an opportunity to prevent it)?

Democracy promotion strategies vary significantly across different organizations and are often driven by institutional priorities and divergent instincts about what will work. But data can help. Our analysis indicates that there are distinct “early warning signals” that can be used to anticipate backsliding, and that these warning signals differ according to where a country is on the spectrum of “Free” to “Not Free.”

For example, among what Freedom House classifies as “Free” countries, the factor most correlated to future backsliding turns out to be low levels of economic opportunity, much more so than factors like challenges to elections or civil society. In “Partly Free” countries, weakened civil society is correlated with future backsliding, but—somewhat counterintuitively—lower scores on elections turned out not to be. Finally, confirming what one might expect about the importance of legal protections and political freedoms, the rule of law and the presence of open debate are important leading indicators across both “Free” and “Partly Free” countries.

This analysis relies on correlation and therefore cannot prove causation. However, if these factors do correlate with future backsliding, then they can be used as early warning signals to help leaders identify countries at risk for backsliding, as well as guide potential investments for reducing that risk. For example, boosting economic opportunity in “Free” countries with high inequality might be a strategic way to allocate scarce resources. Conversely, prioritizing countries for support based on lower scores on elections may make less sense, given that other factors are more likely to indicate backsliding (and may indicate that, when deciding what aspects of a country’s democracy to shore up, elections might not be the most important piece). Finally, one might conclude that investing in civil society is important in countries at risk of backsliding (or those that recently backslid), since that aspect of democratic society takes the largest hit after a country backslides (and can presumably help curb further global democratic backsliding).

Read the full article about curbing global democratic backsliding by Jarrett Bell and Sam Greenberg at Stanford Social Innovation Review.