International IDEA Finds US Democratic Performance at Its Lowest in 50 Years of Measurement

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) published its annual Global State of Democracy report on September 15, 2026, finding the United States at its lowest democratic performance in the fifty years the organization has tracked democracies. The U.S. declined on nearly half of IDEA’s thirty indicators, with judicial independence, credible elections, freedom of expression and press freedom at or near their lowest recorded levels. The report finds the American decline is exerting destabilizing effects on democratic performance worldwide.

This is the second major index to register the same shift in 2026. V-Dem downgraded the United States out of the liberal-democracy category in March (2026-03-18–v-dem-downgrades-us-no-longer-liberal-democracy), and international democracy organizations flagged a U.S. crisis as early as February 2025 (2025-02-28–international-democracy-groups-us-crisis). Two independent measurement projects, different methodologies, converging direction. The value of a fifty-year series is that it prices the current moment against the whole record rather than against the prior administration.

What this entry does not claim. No sub-scores appear in the sources read — the “nearly half of thirty indicators” figure and the four named declining areas are as specific as the cited reporting gets, and the entry deliberately goes no further. The full IDEA report has not been obtained; a lead is open to pull it for the judicial-independence and press-freedom sub-scores and to identify which specific U.S. policy decisions the report names as drivers. A second sourcing caveat: the Guardian’s own reporting was not reached directly — the second source here is Press TV relaying it, which is a tier-3 relay of a tier-1 original and is marked as such. The KPBS report independently carries the core findings.