GLOSSARY
Autocracy: closed and electoral, with the verified cases from 2025
Updated August 2, 2026
An autocracy is not always a regime without elections. In comparative measurement, the distinction between a "closed" autocracy and an "electoral" one — where voting exists but isn't free or fair — is often more useful than the binary question "are there elections or not." This entry explains the distinction and shows the verified 2025 cases.
What it is
A system of government in which power is concentrated in a single individual or a narrow circle, without effective constraints from competitive elections, an independent judiciary, or a parliament able to limit it. V-Dem distinguishes two sub-types: closed autocracy (no multi-party elections for the executive or the legislature) and electoral autocracy (elections formally exist but are not free or fair). A closed autocracy is defined by the absence of citizens' right to choose either the head of government or the legislature through multi-party elections.
The picture as of 2025-2026
V-Dem records 44 countries undergoing autocratization in 2025 (up from 42 in the previous edition), home to 41% of the world's population — a record high for the current wave of autocratization — against only 18 countries democratizing (5% of the world's population). Among the countries newly added to the "autocratizing" list in 2025, V-Dem lists Cambodia, Croatia, Italy, Kuwait, Madagascar, Slovakia, Slovenia, Togo, the United Kingdom and the United States — a list that includes both countries already classified as autocracies and consolidated democracies in decline, confirming that "autocratization" is a direction of travel, not a binary state.
A notable case that splits the sources
V-Dem reports that the United States lost, for the first time in over 50 years, its liberal democracy status, dropping to the lower category of electoral democracy. This figure is not confirmed in the same form by the other two sources: Freedom House still classifies the US as "Free" while flagging the sharpest drop among Free countries, 3 points down on a 100-point scale, to a score of 81. Here too, the divergence should be reported as such, not resolved in favor of a single source.
Verified examples by source
V-Dem, closed autocracy, 2025: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Cuba, Guinea-Bissau (new entry 2025), Myanmar, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Vietnam. Freedom House, "Not Free," lowest scores 2026 (/100): South Sudan 0, Sudan 1, Turkmenistan 1, North Korea 3, Eritrea 3, Belarus 7, China 9, Cuba 9, Iran 10, Russia 12, Venezuela 13. EIU, "authoritarian regime," 2025: Angola is the only country to enter this category in 2025 (previously "hybrid"); among the established cases: Afghanistan (lowest score in the entire index), North Korea, Syria, Myanmar, Russia, China.
Hungary has never been classified an "autocracy" by any of the three institutes — it is a case of hybrid regime/flawed democracy according to EIU. Its specific case is covered under → Illiberal democracy, distinct from this entry.
See also
Democracy · Hybrid regime · Illiberal democracy
Sources: V-Dem Institute — Democracy Report 2026 · Freedom House — Freedom in the World 2026 · Economist Intelligence Unit — Democracy Index 2025