Are We on a Great Trend Line?

The number of people living in democracies rose from 4 billion to 4.2 billion between 2003 and 2017. 3.3 billion people lived under dictatorship last year compared to 2.3 billion in 2003. It is said that the number of countries classified as having exemplary standards of free and fair elections had dropped from one in six in 2006 to one in 14 last year. While 17 of the 129 countries were considered to have completely unrestricted freedom of press and opinion in 2006, that was the case for just 10 countries last year.