Freedom House — count of ‘electoral democracies’ — down from 125 in 2016 to 106.
THE NUMBERS: U.S. rating for “freedom”* –
| 2025 |
81/100
|
|
2024
|
84/100
|
|
2014
|
93/100
|
* Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World” reports for 2026, 2025, and 2015. 2015 is the first year they used the 100-point scoring system. These rank countries as ‘free’, ‘partly free’, or ‘not free’, on a 0-to-100 spectrum based on evaluations of electoral democracy, civil liberties, and personal freedoms.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
As the Trump administration asks the public to “give us another chance” next week, NGO Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World 2026” report has a gloomy assessment of American rights and liberties:
“Among countries rated ‘Free,’ the United States, Bulgaria, and Italy have experienced the year’s largest declines. In the United States, an escalation both in legislative dysfunction and executive dominance, growing pressure on people’s ability to engage in free expression, and the new administration’s moves to undermine anticorruption safeguards all contributed to the negative score change. The United States’ net decline since 2005 [based on a rights-and-liberties score of 100] is more than any other country rated ‘Free’ during the same period except for Nauru and Bulgaria.”
Background: Freedom House originated as an internationalist human rights advocacy group and antagonist of “America First Committee” isolationism in 1941, and began evaluating countries on democracy and civil liberties in 1973. Since 2014, its “Freedom in the World” report has rated countries on a 0-to-100 scale, based on a composite of (a) political rights including electoral democracy, political pluralism, and (b) civil liberties including freedom of expression, belief, and association, rule of law, and individual autonomy and choice in personal life. The 2026 edition covers 208 countries and territories, and finds 89 of them “free,” 52 “partly free,” and 67 “not free.” It ranks Finland “freest” in the world, with 100 of the 100 possible points. New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden are next at 99. Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories are the least free, rated an extraordinary “-1” for combining lack of any political or civil rights (apart from a single point for freedom to marry) with attempts at “deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a group or territory.”
America’s election next Tuesday takes place, according at least to Freedom House, in an environment of eroding democracy and liberty. The U.S. places 66th out of 2018 with a score of 81, tied with Jamaica, the Seychelles, South Africa, and Suriname. This is the U.S.’s worst score ever (including when the pre-2014 rankings are converted to the report’s current 100-point scale), down from 84 in 2024 and well below the peaks of 93 and 94 in the mid-2010s.
America’s diminished reputation in this year’s report reflects Freedom House’s alarm over weakening anti-corruption policies, presidential attempts to bypass Congress and rule by decree, and more frequent legal “threats and reprisals” for political speech. In world context, though, the U.S.’s drop may be especially steep but looks more like an example of a larger trend than an “American exceptionalism” anomaly. Averaged across countries, Freedom House’s overall ratings peaked in 2005 and have drifted downward every year since, and their count of “electoral democracies” has dropped by about 20.
Research over the past two years by PPI’s Project on Center-Left Renewal helps to explain, suggesting that the downward trend isn’t just idiosyncratic pessimism on the part of Freedom House. Rather, it looks like a political-world reflection of public opinion in many democracies, especially among working-class voters. A sample from Project Director Claire Ainsley, Deborah Mattison and Tom Brookes, reporting on working-class and “swing voter” opinion in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Germany last year in their report Build Back Belief:
“A powerful sense of injustice fueled by the belief that government is no longer on the side of the people it has been elected to serve. Dismay that working people like them must work harder and harder just to get by, drained of hope and aspiration. Fearful for their children and grandchildren in an increasingly insecure world. … These voters perceive a mismatch between modern life, which feels increasingly fast-paced, and sclerotic, unresponsive governments – overly reactive, too slow, incapable of making big changes. Many see politicians as, at best, weak and incompetent, trapped in failing systems, at worst, willfully propping up the status quo.”
But: Set against this feeling of disillusion and fading faith that political democracies are delivering, the voters in the Ainsley/Mattison/Bruce study appear pragmatic. Rather than grandiose visions or wreck-the-system ideologies, they hope governments can deliver living-room-level plans to reduce costs —homes, basic consumer goods, health, energy — and remove legal and social obstacles to career mobility for non-college families:
“Voters describe the change they are looking for in pretty simple terms, even if delivering it in practice is harder. They want help with living costs to make life more affordable, particularly energy and housing. They want help to get on, and favour policies who open up economic opportunity for them and their kids – like better alternatives to college for gaining career skills – over higher tax and spend.”
These voters panned the Biden administration’s “postneoliberalism” two years ago. They will render judgment Tuesday on the “national conservatism,” tariffs, etc. of the Trump administration. And perhaps they will ask a fresh Congress, with different leadership, for something new.
Further Reading
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
- Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
- Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
- Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
- Offer a positive alternative
Freedom House assesses the state of liberty and democracy worldwide.
… ranks 189 countries and territories, from Finland’s perfect 100 to the -1 of Russian-occupied Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.
… reviews the United States in 2025.
… and explains the “origin story” of Roosevelt, Willkie, liberal internationalism and their isolationist “American First Committee” antagonists in 1940.
PPI on politics and democracy:
PPI’s Project on Center-Left Renewal, led by Claire Ainsley.
In Build Back Belief: Why Voters Around the World Lost Faith in Government and How to Win It Back, Ainsley, Mattison, and Brookes survey “swing voters” in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Germany.
PPI President Will Marshall on the initial political success and subsequent decline of Trumpism.
VP/Public Affairs Stu Malec and Political Director Jolie Libert join political analyst Robin Johnson in profiling 17 Democratic state legislators succeeding in working-class/rural districts.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
