Understanding Global Democratic Backsliding

In recent years, democratic institutions around the world have faced unprecedented challenges. With shifting political and social climates, an overwhelming number of countries are facing an erosion in their democratic nature and principles. This phenomenon, known as Democratic Backsliding has unfortunately been the hallmark of the 21st century.

In the form of protests, and activism, citizens of the world have resisted this unwelcome change. Through the following visualizations I aim to present the data surrounding such protests (acquired from Carnegie Endowment's Global Protest Tracker), and compare it with the democratic indicators for all these countries (acquired from V-Dem Democracy Indicators dataset).

Scroll down to begin exploring!

Pericles's Funeral Oration Pericles's Funeral Oration By Philipp Foltz - Private Collection https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-F-2001-7-864-5, Public Domain, Link

Democracy Score vs. Protest Count

2017

Where do Democracy and Dissent meet?

Using this bubble plot, you can see the ifs? and hows? of dissent in each country. The size of the bubbles represent the number of people protesting.

Moving through the years, using the ▶️ button, see how the trends in dissent and democracy compliment each other

Click on a bubble to follow its democratic journey

Protest Participants, Motivations and Outcomes: ,


The Reasons and Results

Through the years, many people rose up to fight for a myriad of reasons, in some cases their actions inspired others, whereas somewhere else the results of their actions stifled dissent.

Hover over the links in the diagram beside to see the names of the protest. Each level in the diagram, shed light on the people protesting (left), their motivations (middle) and whether they had a significant outcome? (right)

The Global Democratic Panorama

Use the world map to easily select a country, and see its metrics in any visualisation on this page.

Select any country from the world, by clicking on its map below, and you will be able to explore the changes in niche democratic indicators using the sidebar . As you select a country, you will see the bottom bar fill up with protests and civil movements till the year you select using the timeline slider in the sidebar

Clicking on protest will show you detailed information about it.


2017

Interesting Countries

Click to Explore
  • Thailand - reversing Democratic Backsliding
  • Brazil - reversing Democratic Backsliding
  • France - highest number of protests
  • India - highest number of protests in the Eastern Hemisphere
  • Afghanistan - facing heavy Democratic Backsliding

Indicator Scores

These lines show the 5 institutional indicators (0–1 scale) for the selected country. Higher scores mean stronger democratic performance in that dimension.