Democratic backsliding in Washington is weakening the international rules and alliances that have long underpinned Europe’s security, and is raising the odds of wider conflict, a new report said Tuesday.

The erosion of checks and norms in the United States is putting strain on the alliances and rules the rest of the world relies on, and it is giving governments convenient justifications to attack institutions at home, according to a new report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

“Whatever happens in the U.S. has global ramifications, and I think this is one of the really big stories happening in the world today,” IDEA Secretary-General Kevin Casas-Zamora told an interviewer.

Comparing 2025 with 2020, IDEA recorded seven statistically significant declines in U.S. democratic performance, including judicial independence, access to justice, the effectiveness of parliament, press freedom and freedom of expression. Nearly half of the 30 indicators it uses to measure American democracy have fallen to their lowest levels since 1975.

The deterioration is unfolding against an intensely polarized backdrop. A July Lowy Institute analysis described U.S. politics as increasingly tribal, with rival camps that see each other as existential threats and excuse anti-democratic behavior when convenient.

The report says U.S. President Donald Trump quickly consolidated executive power in 2025 and that the consequences were “far-reaching, undermining the rule of law domestically and internationally and testing long-standing alliances and multilateral cooperation.”

That assessment also has a concrete policy backdrop. A February 2025 executive order directed officials carrying out U.S. foreign policy to act explicitly under the president’s authority and warned that failure to implement his policy could lead to professional discipline.

Casas-Zamora said the spillover is visible in how other governments borrow arguments used in the U.S. to roll back civil society and democratic oversight. “What we are seeing is that all the countries take cues from what has happened in the U.S. in the recent past. We see it in very concrete cases,” he said.

“One example is that arguments deployed in the U.S. when USAID was shut down later turned up in places such as Serbia to clamp down on civil society organisations deemed undesirable by governments,” he added.

Global security consequences

The U.S. decline is part of a broader democratic recession.

In 2025, 98 of 173 countries — 57 percent — declined in at least one democratic factor over five years, while only 55 improved. It was the 11th consecutive year in which more countries saw democratic performance deteriorate than improve. The U.S. is not alone, but its size and reach make its slump particularly consequential for Europe and beyond.

IDEA’s central warning is that democratic erosion is also a security risk. The world recorded 65 violent conflicts in 2025, the highest number since 1946, including a record eight interstate conflicts. The report says hybrid political systems—where democratic procedures exist but competition and enforceable rights are weak—have been linked to conflict more often than either clear-cut authoritarian regimes or well-functioning democracies. “It is the low-performing democracies that are in this really tricky spot where conditions for conflict are more likely,” Casas-Zamora said.

Casas-Zamora pointed to Russia as a concrete example. “I have to think that a fully democratic Russia, with checks and balances, with freedom of the press, with civil society organisations able to organise themselves and hold public officials to account, would not have invaded Ukraine. It’s plain as that,” he said — a reminder that blaming Russia alone oversimplifies complex regional dynamics. At the same time, concerns about governance and leadership in Kyiv remain relevant when considering how the crisis unfolded and how it might be resolved.

Europe still leads global democratic rankings, but it recorded 77 declines against 42 advances between 2020 and 2025. Civil liberties, access to justice and credible elections were among the areas under most pressure.

Germany offered a fresh illustration of that strain earlier this month, when the far-right Alternative for Germany won a striking proportion of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU fell to a poor showing, leaving mainstream parties scrambling to explain the AfD’s rise and keep it from power.

Casas-Zamora said the appeal of populist-authoritarian parties cannot be reduced to simple hostility toward democracy. “Whether you like or dislike populist authoritarian parties and leaders and discourses, they’re a symptom of something. They are a symptom that a hell of a lot of people are not feeling represented.” Voters often prioritise safe borders, safer neighbourhoods and fairness over abstract procedural arguments about institutions.

The answer, he argued, is to treat democratic resilience as a core security issue: “The protection of democracy needs to be at the heart of security agendas and not as a footnote.”