Global Rule of Law Threatened by Erosion of American Democracy, Watchdog Report Cautions

The international legal order and the preservation of democratic norms worldwide are facing mounting threats driven by the domestic decline of democracy in the United States, according to a comprehensive assessment published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). The watchdog warned that the erosion of fundamental safeguards within the US is functioning as a primary driver of a broader worldwide deterioration in institutional governance.

In its newly released study, the Stockholm-based intergovernmental organization noted that nearly half of the metrics used to evaluate the health of American democracy have plummeted to their lowest points in five decades. This rapid downturn has positioned the US as both the most visible symbol and the foremost accelerator of a worldwide retreat from democratic standards, carrying profound ramifications that extend far beyond American borders.

The assessment highlighted that the consolidation of authority within the executive branch under President Donald Trump has severely altered the domestic political landscape. According to the report, power has been actively accumulated to advance personal objectives and carry out political retaliation against perceived adversaries, creating an environment where public dissent is increasingly suppressed and institutional checks on executive overreach are progressively dismantled.

Between 2020 and 2025, the United States registered statistically significant downturns across seven vital democratic measures. These areas include judicial independence, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and access to justice. With the sole exception of the metric governing free political parties, all other declining indicators in the US reached historical lows within the organization’s long-running tracking index.

The weakening of press freedom was highlighted as a critical area of concern within the report. International IDEA documented how state support for public media was curtailed, citing funding reductions targeting public broadcasters such as PBS and NPR, as well as the US Agency for Global Media. The watchdog also pointed to an increase in personal attacks directed at journalists, particularly targeting women in the profession, alongside aggressive legal challenges mounted against prominent news institutions, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.

Academic environments and institutions of higher education have encountered parallel pressures, according to the findings. Executive initiatives aimed at influencing institutional accreditation, faculty hiring practices, and university funding were identified as direct challenges to freedom of expression and academic liberty. The report specifically referenced instances where federal financial allocations were withheld from prominent institutions such as Columbia University and Harvard University.

In its evaluation of legal protections, the watchdog identified the administration's aggressive enforcement of immigration measures as the most acute demonstration of diminishing access to justice. The analysis focused on the invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport 137 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador. Many of the individuals subjected to removal had little to no demonstrated connection to the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua and were systematically deprived of meaningful legal mechanisms to contest their deportation in court.

This domestic contraction within the United States is unfolding against an increasingly fragile international landscape. The report revealed that approximately 57 percent of nations across the globe experienced a decline in at least one fundamental measure of democratic integrity between 2020 and 2025.

Globally, the state of the judiciary has reached its most precarious condition in decades, with judicial independence falling to a 36-year low across the surveyed nations. Simultaneously, the credibility and integrity of electoral processes worldwide have descended to levels not observed in three decades, underscoring a systemic weakening of standard democratic procedures across diverse regions.

Because of Washington's substantial geopolitical influence and historic standing, the report argued that the American retreat from traditional norms exerts an outsized destabilizing effect on the international stage. The normalization of institutional degradation in the US has weakened long-standing diplomatic alliances, strained multilateral institutions, and provided political cover for authoritarian-minded leaders abroad.

The study presented concrete examples of this global spillover effect, pointing to political developments in Latin America and Eastern Europe. In Brazil, the unrest following the 2022 presidential election—where former President Jair Bolsonaro challenged the results and his followers subsequently assaulted government headquarters—closely mirrored the political turbulence surrounding the 2020 US presidential race. Similarly, government officials in Serbia pointed to American accusations regarding mismanagement at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as justification to launch state raids on independent civil society groups.

International IDEA Secretary-General Kevin Casas-Zamora emphasized that the erosion of domestic and international legal principles threatens the very foundation of global democratic resilience. Casas-Zamora warned that the swift retrogression of democratic practices within the US is actively degrading judicial autonomy and accelerating the fragmentation of the rules-based international order.

The watchdog further cautioned that the erosion of democratic institutions carries direct and severe consequences for international stability and peace. Research cited in the report links certain dimensions of democratic decline with an elevated danger of armed conflict, illustrating that weakening institutional accountability often correlates with heightened state instability.

Underscoring these geopolitical risks, the report cited data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program showing that 2025 saw 65 active violent conflicts around the world. This total marks the highest annual number of armed conflicts recorded since the monitoring series was established in 1946, and included a record-breaking eight distinct conflicts fought directly between sovereign states.