US President Joe Biden takes off his protective facemask as he arrives to speak at the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday in New York. This is the first speech to the world body by Biden. Photo: AFP

The US has joined an annual list of "backsliding" democracies for the first time, the International IDEA think tank said on Monday, pointing to a "visible deterioration" that it said began in 2019.

Globally, more than one in four people live in a backsliding democracy, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

"This year we coded the United States as backsliding for the first time, but our data suggest that the backsliding episode began at least in 2019," it said in its report titled "Global State of Democracy 2021," Alexander Hudson, a co-author of the report, told AFP.

"The United States is a high-performing democracy, and even improved its performance in indicators of impartial administration [corruption and predictable enforcement] in 2020. However, the declines in civil liberties and checks on government indicate that there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy," Hudson said.

"A historic turning point came in 2020-21 when former president Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election results in the United States," the report said.

In addition, Hudson pointed to a "decline in the quality of freedom of association and assembly during the summer of protests in 2020" following the police killing of George Floyd.

International IDEA bases its assessments on 50 years of democratic indicators in around 160 countries, assigning them to three categories: democracies (including those that are "backsliding"), "hybrid" governments and authoritarian regimes.

"The visible deterioration of democracy in the United States, as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation [in elections], and the runaway polarization... is one of the most concerning developments," said International IDEA secretary-general Kevin Casas-Zamora.

He warned of a knock-on effect, noting: "The violent contestation of the 2020 election without any evidence of fraud has been replicated, in different ways, in places as diverse as Myanmar, Peru and Israel."

The number of backsliding democracies has doubled in the past decade, now accounting for a quarter of the world's population. In addition to "established democracies" such as the US, the list includes EU member states Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. 

AFP