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A group of political scientists has delivered a stark assessment of American democracy.
Bright Line Watch, composed of academics from institutions like the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College, monitors the health of U.S. democratic institutions. Their latest surveys show academic experts now rate the U.S. political system as being closer to a hypothetical “illiberal democracy” than to a “strong democracy.”
This classification has prompted questions about the trajectory of the nation’s political system. What is behind this assessment?
What “Illiberal Democracy” Means
An illiberal democracy is a governing system where democratic institutions like elections exist, but they’re accompanied by significant restrictions on individual rights and systematic erosion of constitutional limits on executive power. It’s a hybrid regime that maintains the outward appearance of democracy while engaging in authoritarian practices, effectively hiding nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures.
The journalist and scholar Fareed Zakaria popularized the term, defining such regimes as “democratically elected… [but] routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of basic rights and liberties.”
Key Characteristics
Political scientists have identified a consistent set of characteristics that define illiberal democracies. These features represent patterns observed in weakening democratic guardrails from within, often gradually over time.
Consolidation of executive power. Authority concentrates in the executive branch, often centered around a charismatic leader, at the expense of the legislature and judiciary.
Erosion of checks and balances. The independence of the judiciary gets systematically weakened. The power of the legislature to provide meaningful oversight is curtailed.
Disregard for the rule of law. The principle that all individuals and institutions are equally subject to the law gets undermined. Instead, the law is often applied unequally, used to reward allies and punish political opponents.
Restrictions on civil liberties. Freedoms of the press, speech, and assembly are curbed through government interference, media censorship, and legal restrictions on protest.
Weaponization of state institutions. Government agencies, from tax authorities to law enforcement, are used to monitor, harass, and punish political adversaries. State resources are misused for partisan gain.
Populist and nationalist rhetoric. Political competition is framed as an existential battle where opponents’ loyalty and patriotism are questioned. This is frequently combined with a focus on cultural homogeneity and discrimination against minority groups.
Manipulation of elections. While elections are held, the process is often manipulated through biased media coverage, misuse of state resources, and various tactics to ensure the incumbent’s victory.
A Post-Liberal Phenomenon
The concept of illiberalism is particularly relevant to established democracies because it’s often a “post-liberal” phenomenon. It describes a backlash against the core tenets of modern liberalism that occurs in countries that have already experienced democratic governance.
This backlash is frequently aimed at what some see as “undemocratic liberalism” – the influence of supranational institutions, globalization, multiculturalism, and robust protections for minority rights. In this context, illiberalism isn’t a failure to democratize but a conscious rejection of the liberal components of democracy, often in the name of majoritarian rule and national sovereignty. This reframes the issue from one of democratic development to one of democratic maintenance and decay, often called “democratic backsliding.”
This decay is gradual. The characteristics of an illiberal democracy don’t appear overnight. They’re the result of a slow, incremental erosion of democratic institutions, norms, and values.
This gradual nature can make the process difficult to perceive in real time. An attack on a judge, a new media regulation, the firing of a civil servant – each may seem minor in isolation. But their cumulative effect is the systematic dismantling of the guardrails that protect a liberal democracy from becoming authoritarian.
How Bright Line Watch Measures Democracy
Bright Line Watch was established in late 2016 by political scientists from the University of Chicago, Dartmouth College, the University of Michigan, and the University of Rochester. The initiative is housed at the Chicago Center on Democracy and was founded on the principle that “One of the greatest threats to democracy is the idea that it is unassailable.”
Its core mission is to provide sustained, informed, and objective monitoring of U.S. democratic practices to identify potential threats and points of resilience.
The Methodology
The flagship activity is a series of regular surveys designed to create a detailed picture of U.S. democracy’s performance over time.
Dual panels. The surveys go to two distinct groups: a panel of academic experts (political science faculty at American universities) and a representative sample of the American public. This design allows for a comparison of how specialists and the general population perceive the state of democracy.
The 29 democratic principles. The foundation is a list of approximately 29 statements that articulate core democratic principles. These cover a broad spectrum of democratic functions, including the integrity of elections (“Elections are conducted, ballots counted, and winners determined without pervasive fraud or manipulation”), the protection of civil liberties (“Government protects individuals’ right to engage in unpopular speech or expression”), the existence of checks and balances (“The judiciary is able to effectively limit executive power”), and the observance of political norms (“Elected officials seek compromise with political opponents”).
Importance versus performance. For each principle, respondents rate both its importance for a country to be considered democratic and how well the United States is performing on that principle.
Overall democracy rating. In addition to rating specific principles, respondents provide an overall rating of U.S. democracy on a 100-point scale, where 0 represents a complete dictatorship and 100 represents a perfect democracy.
This methodology captures not just the formal, legal structures of democracy but also perceptions of its health. This is particularly effective for detecting the erosion of political norms – the unwritten rules of conduct vital for a functioning democracy.
Norms such as candidates conceding defeat after an election, respecting the legitimacy of the opposition, or refraining from using government power to attack rivals are difficult to measure by simply analyzing laws on the books.
The dual-panel design also serves as a powerful instrument for detecting political polarization. The growing divergence in how Democrats and Republicans, or how experts and the public, view the same political events has become a key finding in itself.
The Evidence
The classification of the United States as closer to an illiberal democracy is the outcome of a specific, data-driven comparative exercise. This finding is supported by a consistent, multi-year trend of perceived decline in core democratic principles.
The U.S. Versus Hypothetical Regimes
In its September 2025 survey, Bright Line Watch asked its expert panel to rate the U.S. on the 0-100 democracy scale. In the same survey, they asked the experts to rate three hypothetical countries, each defined by detailed institutional characteristics related to elections, courts, law enforcement, and media freedom. These hypotheticals represented a “strong democracy,” an “illiberal democracy,” and a “nondemocracy.”
The results provided a stark comparative benchmark:
- The United States received an average expert rating of 54.
- The hypothetical “illiberal democracy” received an average rating of 44.
- The hypothetical “strong democracy” was rated at 92.
- The “nondemocracy” was rated at 18.
The current U.S. score of 54 is far closer to the 44 of the illiberal model than to the 92 of the strong democracy. This indicates that, in the collective judgment of the political scientists surveyed, the current performance of the American political system aligns more closely with the characteristics of an illiberal regime than a fully functioning liberal democracy.
| Regime Type | Average Expert Rating (0-100 Scale) |
|---|---|
| Strong Democracy (Hypothetical Country A) | 92 |
| United States (Actual) | 54 |
| Illiberal Democracy (Hypothetical Country B) | 44 |
| Nondemocracy (Hypothetical Country C) | 18 |
Source: Bright Line Watch, September 2025 Survey
The Trajectory
This rating isn’t an anomaly. It’s the low point of a consistent downward trend Bright Line Watch has tracked since its inception in 2017. Expert ratings of U.S. democracy, which were generally in the high 60s between 2017 and 2019, have steadily eroded.
This decline accelerated in 2025. The mean expert rating dropped from 67 in November 2024 to 55 in February 2025, then to 53 in April 2025, before settling at 54 in September. This pattern suggests sustained erosion of democratic quality rather than a sudden collapse.
Which Principles Are Eroding
Bright Line Watch’s granular data provides insight into which specific democratic functions are perceived to be weakening most significantly. Across recent surveys, experts have identified declines in performance on principles related to accountability, the rule of law, and civil liberties.
Accountability and rule of law. There is a sharp decline in confidence that government agencies are not used to monitor or punish political opponents and that law enforcement investigations of public officials are free from political influence. This erosion of accountability for official misconduct is a central theme.
Civil liberties and expression. Experts perceive a decline in protections for individuals’ right to engage in unpopular speech or peaceful protest, as well as a drop in protections for freedom of the press.
Checks and balances. Confidence in the ability of the judiciary and the legislature to effectively limit executive power has fallen. The perception that elected branches respect judicial independence has also dropped.
Electoral norms. A foundational norm of democracy – that incumbent politicians who lose elections publicly concede defeat – is seen as increasingly violated. This rejection of electoral outcomes is viewed as a serious threat to the peaceful transfer of power.
A central theme connecting these eroding principles is the breakdown of mechanisms that ensure accountability and constrain executive power. The weaponization of state agencies, politically influenced investigations, and a lack of sanctions for official misconduct are all core tactics in the illiberal framework.
The data on public perceptions reveals another critical dimension: a profound partisan divide. The democratic decline identified by experts is not a universally accepted reality among the American public. The gap between how Republicans and Democrats rate the performance of U.S. democracy reached an “all-time high” of 15 points in the September 2025 survey.
This chasm is more than just a political disagreement. It represents a fracture in shared reality that makes it nearly impossible to achieve the consensus required to diagnose, let alone remedy, threats to the political system.
How the U.S. Compares Globally
Situating these findings within a global framework reveals a complex and contested picture of American democracy. While Bright Line Watch’s data places the U.S. among struggling democracies, other major global indices offer different, and at times conflicting, assessments.
Bright Line Watch’s International Comparison
When Bright Line Watch has asked its expert panel to rate other countries on the same 0-100 scale, the results place the United States well below its traditional democratic peers. The U.S. rating of 53-54 is substantially lower than Canada (88) and Great Britain (83). Instead, the U.S. score places it in a category with countries like Mexico (60) and just above Israel (49).
This comparison suggests that, in the view of these experts, the performance of American democracy is no longer in the same league as other established Western democracies.
The V-Dem Institute’s Assessment
The Varieties of Democracy Institute, a well-regarded global democracy measurement project based at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, offers a concerning assessment in its Democracy Report 2025. The report identifies the United States as undergoing the “fastest evolving episode of autocratization the USA has been through in modern history.”
V-Dem’s global data, which involves over 4,200 country experts, shows a worldwide “third wave of autocratization” in which autocracies now outnumber democracies for the first time in over two decades.
While the 2025 report’s data only extends through the end of 2024, its authors state that based on events in 2025 – including the expansion of executive authority and attacks on independent institutions – the U.S. will “definitely” be downgraded and reclassified in their next report. One of the report’s authors projected that the U.S. may no longer qualify as a democracy by the end of the year.
Freedom House’s Countervailing View
In stark contrast, Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog organization, provides a more optimistic assessment in its Freedom in the World 2025 report. It rates the United States as “Free” with an overall score of 84 out of 100. This represents a one-point improvement from its 2024 score.
The score increase was attributed specifically to the fact that the 2024 presidential election proceeded smoothly, its results were widely accepted, and there were no significant reports of foreign or domestic interference that threatened the outcome.
Even with its high rating, Freedom House acknowledges a longer-term “erosion” of U.S. democratic institutions. Their report points to persistent challenges, including “rising political polarization and extremism, partisan pressure on the electoral process, mistreatment and dysfunction in the criminal justice and immigration systems, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence.”
| Organization | 2025 U.S. Rating/Status | Key Rationale/Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Bright Line Watch | 54/100 (Closest to “Illiberal Democracy”) | Expert perceptions of performance on democratic principles, including norms |
| V-Dem Institute | Democracy (at risk); “Fastest autocratization” | Multi-faceted index sensitive to executive aggrandizement, attacks on media/judiciary |
| Freedom House | 84/100 (“Free”) | Focus on political rights and civil liberties, with emphasis on electoral process integrity |
Shell Versus Core
The divergence between these assessments reveals a critical distinction in what is being measured: the formal “shell” of democracy versus its substantive “core.”
Freedom House’s “Free” rating largely reflects the fact that the institutional shell remains intact. Elections were held successfully, votes were counted, and the legal framework for civil liberties is still in place.
The more negative ratings from Bright Line Watch and V-Dem reflect a deep concern that the core – the political norms, respect for the rule of law, and shared factual reality that make the shell function – is decaying from within.
An illiberal democracy is precisely this condition: a country that retains a democratic shell but possesses an increasingly hollow, illiberal core. The difference between the ratings isn’t necessarily a contradiction. It’s a detailed portrait of a specific type of democratic decay where formal procedures outlive the substantive norms that give them meaning.
Methodological Considerations
A complete understanding of Bright Line Watch’s findings requires acknowledging the complexities and critiques related to its methodology. The organization has demonstrated a notable commitment to transparency by researching and publishing on the potential limitations of its own data, particularly concerning the views of its expert panel.
The Expert “Pessimism Bias”
A significant methodological consideration is the “pessimism bias” that Bright Line Watch’s own analysis has identified among its expert surveyors. Research co-authored by the organization found that political science experts consistently assign a higher probability to negative democratic events than the rate at which those events actually occur.
For example, across several survey waves, the average probability experts assigned to a list of negative events was approximately 45%, but only about 22% of those events came to pass. This bias is most pronounced among experts who don’t specialize in American politics and those who already hold a more negative view of the state of U.S. democracy.
However, this research also demonstrates that the bias can be statistically corrected. By aggregating the full range of expert opinions (for instance, by taking the median prediction) and then mathematically adjusting for the observed level of pessimism, the resulting forecasts become “remarkably accurate.”
This process of self-correction suggests that while individual expert forecasts may be overly dire, the collective trend identified by the group is robust and informative. This transparency about potential biases isn’t a reason to dismiss the findings. It’s an indicator of methodological rigor and commitment to a scientific process.
Other Critiques
Other critiques have been raised regarding Bright Line Watch’s work. Some have noted that the organization was founded in late 2016, suggesting its focus may be a reaction to a specific political administration rather than to longer-term trends of democratic decay.
Bright Line Watch scholars have acknowledged this limitation, noting that their surveys may “fail to detect the erosion because the norms in question had collapsed long before our first survey in 2017.”
Questions have also been raised about the potential for demographic bias in the expert panel, given the historical underrepresentation of women and minorities in the political science profession, and about the recruitment methods for the public survey panel.
These points provide vital context. The argument that democratic erosion predates 2017 suggests that the trends Bright Line Watch is measuring are an acceleration of a longer-term process of rising polarization and institutional decay.
The “illiberal democracy” rating should be understood not as the beginning of a crisis, but as a significant milestone in a crisis that has been developing for some time. Bright Line Watch’s data provides a high-resolution snapshot of this acceleration. Its “illiberal” classification is a formal recognition from a body of academic experts that a critical threshold in this long-term process may have now been crossed.
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