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How Many People Live in a Political Democracy Today?

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How Many People Live in a Political Democracy Today?

Governments come in all shapes and sizes, but can ultimately be divided into two broad categories: democracies and autocracies.

Using the Regimes of the World classification system developed by political scientists Anna Lührmann, Marcus Tannenberg, and Staffan Lindberg and data from V-Dem, it’s estimated that 2.3 billion people—about 29% of the global population—lived in a democracy in 2021.

By contrast, 71% of people lived under what can be considered an autocratic regime. In fact, the number of people considered to be living under a type of autocracy is at its highest total in the last three decades.

To see how this split has changed over time, the chart from Our World in Data, which uses data from the aforementioned sources, highlights how many people have lived under political democracies versus autocracies since the 18th century.

Forms of Political Democracies and Autocracies

First, let’s look at the four types of political regimes shown in the chart, based on criteria from the classifications of Lührmann et al. (2018):

  • Liberal democracies: Judicial and legislative branches have oversight of the chief executive, rule of law, and individual liberties.
  • Electoral democracies: Hold multiparty de-facto elections that are free and fair, have an elected executive, and institutional democratic freedoms such as voting rights, clean elections, and freedom of expression.
  • Electoral autocracies: Hold de-facto elections; democratic standards are lacking and irregular.
  • Closed autocracies: No elections are held for the chief executive or no meaningful competition is present.

It’s important to note that this is a fairly stringent and specific classification system. Many countries consider themselves an electoral democracy or strive to appear as one, but are still considered autocratic based on this criteria.

Using this categorization scheme, 34 countries can be considered liberal democracies, 55 are electoral democracies, 60 are electoral autocracies, and 30 are closed autocracies as of early 2022.

Over 200 Years of People Living in a Political Democracy

Many political systems around the world have made clear transitions in the last two centuries, but even in the last decade they’ve shifted substantially.

In 2010, the global population was split about 50/50 between democratic and autocratic regimes. Since then, there has been a clear trend towards autocratization.

Year
% Democracy
% Autocracy
202129.3%70.7%
201050.4%49.6%
200053.6%46.4%
199041.4%58.6%
198034.1%65.9%
197034.9%65.1%
196035.2%64.8%
195018.1%81.9%
194010.4%89.6%
193017.9%82.1%
192012.0%88.0%
19103.7%96.3%
19003.6%96.4%
18903.5%96.5%
18803.5%96.5%
18700.4%99.6%
18600.3%99.7%
18500.2%99.8%
18400.0%100.0%
18300.0%100.0%
18200.0%100.0%
18100.0%100.0%
18000.0%100.0%

Note: Missing regime data not included

Though modern democracies have roots in the 1700s and 1800s in Europe and the United States, governments have only more recently been able to check the boxes of the stringent democratic criteria highlighted above.

According to the data, liberal democracies and electoral democracies only emerged in Switzerland and Australia in the 1850s and in France in the 1870s after the Franco-Prussian war.

Following both World Wars, the number of democracies in the world increased, spreading across Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia. After the Cold War, countries across Eastern Europe also adopted democracies, with the total populations shown in the table below.

Year
Liberal Democracy
Electoral Democracy
Electoral Autocracy
Closed Autocracy
20211.05B1.25B3.51B2.05B
20101.16B2.34B1.75B1.70B
20001.06B2.22B1.02B1.82B
1990865.52M1.33B999.81M2.12B
1980722.40M796.11M957.93M1.97B
1970632.53M655.49M439.89M1.96B
1960334.08M730.90M528.14M1.43B
1950217.75M239.01M306.07M1.76B
194074.46M156.01M113.89M1.87B
193089.64M274.29M67.96M1.60B
192070.22M152.50M275.10M1.36B
191020.74M41.46M261.16M1.34B
190013.70M40.82M222.36M1.25B
18906.00M40.19M179.48M1.11B
18805.03M38.73M158.42M1.05B
18704.41M0188.65M992.35M
18603.80M083.33M1.08B
18502.38M0113.98M1.03B
18400062.01M1.04B
18300047.54M986.50M
18200037.75M921.85M
18100025.74M847.04M
18000022.00M805.81M

Note: Missing regime data not included

On the flipside, it’s estimated that 5.5 billion people live in autocratic countries.

Electoral autocracies make up the majority of this total, with 3.5 billion people or about 45% of the global population today. Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela are considered electoral autocracies, as well as India since 2019.

Closed autocracies are the second-most common, and in the last decade, the number of closed autocracies rose from 25 to 30 countries.

One report estimates that as much as 20% of European countries are autocratizing as of 2021, including Hungary, Greece, Poland, and Croatia.

Changes in Political Systems

What countries became more autocratic in 2021, and why?

Coups, involving the overthrow of a government in power, played a large role behind the most recent autocratic shifts. Of the five coups that occurred in 2021, four​​—Chad, Mali, Guinea, and Myanmar—became classified as closed autocracies. Meanwhile, Nigeria, Tunisia, and El Salvador became classified as electoral autocracies.

Meanwhile, Austria, Portugal, Ghana, and Trinidad & Tobago shifted from liberal democracies to electoral democracies, as the transparency of laws and enforcement waned.

Moving in the opposite direction, both Armenia and Bolivia started being classified as democracies in 2021.

Current Obstacles

Reinforcing the current shift to autocracies is increasing polarization around the world. Research shows that political polarization is linked with democratic decline. Since 1950, 26 of the 52 instances of countries facing deep polarization saw their democratic systems downgraded.

At the same time, misinformation reinforces polarization. With democratic institutions facing headwinds, it remains unclear if current autocratic trends will continue.

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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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War

Visualized: Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare. 

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Teaser image for an dot matrix chart of the top 15 global tank fleets, broken down by main battle tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and storage, showing that the U.S. is number one, by a wide margin.

The Top 15 Global Tank Fleets

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Heavily armed and armored, the modern tank is a versatile and mobile weapons platform, and a critical piece of contemporary warfare.

This visualization shows the top 15 global tank fleets, using data from the 2024 Military Balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Let’s take an in-depth look at the top three fleets:

1. United States

As the world’s pre-eminent military power, it’s perhaps no surprise that the United States also has the largest tank fleet, by a wide margin.

In total, they have just over 45,000 armored fighting vehicles in operation, along with 2,640 main battle tanks (MBTs), and 12,800 vehicles in storage, of which 2,000 are main battle tanks.

CategoryVehiclesGlobal rank
Main battle tanks2,6404
Armored reconnaissance1,7451
Infantry fighting vehicles3,2623
Armored personnel carriers10,6441
Amphibious assault vehicles1,4011
Armored utility vehicles28,4451
Storage12,8001
Total60,9371

The U.S. is internalizing the lessons from the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where Western-supplied anti-tank weapons and massed Ukrainian artillery have been cutting Russian tanks to pieces. As a result, the U.S. recently canceled an upgrade of the M1 Abrams in favor of a more ambitious upgrade.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is nervously eyeing a more confident China and a potential clash over Taiwan, where air and naval forces will be critical. However, a recent war game showed that Taiwanese mechanized ground forces, kitted out with American-made tanks and armored fighting vehicles, were critical in keeping the island autonomous.

2. Russia

According to Oryx, a Dutch open-source intelligence defense website, at time of writing, Russia has lost almost 2,800 main battle tanks since invading Ukraine. Considering that in the 2022 edition of the Military Balance, Russia was estimated to have 2,927 MBTs in operation, those are some hefty losses.

Russia has been able to maintain about 2,000 MBTs in the field, in part, by increasing domestic production. Many defense plants have been taken over by state-owned Rostec and now operate around the clock. Russia is also now spending a full third of their budget on defense, equivalent to about 7.5% of GDP.

At the same time, they’ve also been drawing down their Soviet-era stockpiles, which are modernized before being sent to the front. Just how long they can keep this up is an open question; their stockpiles are large, but not limitless. Here is what their storage levels look like:

Category20232024YOY change
Main battle tanks5,0004,000-20.0%
Armored reconnaissance1,000100-90.0%
Infantry fighting vehicles4,0002,800-30.0%
Armored personnel carriers6,0002,300-61.7%
Total16,0009,200-42.5%

3. China

China holds the third overall spot and top place globally for the number of main battle tanks in operation. Untypically, the People’s Liberation Army has no armored vehicles in storage, which perhaps isn’t surprising when you consider that China has been rapidly modernizing its military and that stockpiles usually contain older models.

China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of armored fighting vehicles, second only to the United States. Breaking down that headline number, we can also see that they have the largest number of light tanks, wheeled guns, and infantry fighting vehicles. 

CategoryVehiclesGlobal rank
Main battle tanks4,7001
Light tanks1,3301
Wheeled guns1,2501
Infantry fighting vehicles8,2001
Armored personnel carriers3,6045
Airborne combat vehicles1802
Amphibious assault vehicles9902
Total20,2543

This is equipment that would be integral if China were to make an attempt to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force, where lightly armored mechanized units need to move with speed to occupy the island before Western allies can enter the fray. It’s worth noting that China also has one of the world’s largest fleets of amphibious assault vehicles.

End of the Tank?

Many commentators at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, were quick to predict the end of the tank, however, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the tank’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

With the U.S. and China both developing remote and autonomous armored vehicles, tanks could be quite different in the future, but there is nothing else that matches them for firepower, mobility, and survivability on the modern battlefield today.

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