This article discusses democratic backsliding by country in the Americas. Democratic backsliding is the process of a country losing democratic qualities over time.
North America Mexico
Shannon K. O'Neil, the vice president, deputy director of Studies, and Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that Mexico was undergoing democratic backsliding under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who displayed little regard for democratic processes, lashed out against critical journalists and columnists, and harassed non-governmental organizations and civil society movements investigating corruption, supporting women's rights or defending human rights.
In addition to these threats, he undermined the power of independent agencies by cutting their budgets through the legislature. He also eliminated 109 state-controlled trust funds set up by past governments to safeguard dedicated public support for artists, academics, scientists, journalists and human rights defenders. In a violation of the constitution and fiscal code, López Obrador revealed the personal income data of journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, who reported on his son's luxurious life in Houston. The judicial branch has been weaponized with politicized investigations, with threats to incarcerate several professors and scientists on money laundering and organized crime charges in the maximum-security prison Reclusorio Norte. Furthermore, environmentially damaging and mostly opaque infrastructure projects have increased, including the construction of the Dos Bocas oil refinery in Tabasco and the Tren Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula.
As part of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), in July 2020, Mexico passed controversial amendments to its copyright law, causing serious human rights concerns from the National Human Rights Commission. These amendments implemented a notice and take down system that forces internet service providers to remove any content or publication that has been accused of violating copyright, even without any evidence of the infringement or a judicial authority. This system could be considered as an extrajudicial form of censorship since it conditions ISPs to implement unilateral content removal measures. Circumvention of technological protection measures is also broadly, vaguely and imprecisely banned, even if the circumvention is done in exercise of human rights. The mere dissemination of instructions is also disproportionately punished.
As a result, human rights organization R3D challenged the constitutionality of the 2020 amendments to the copyright law in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN). However, the SCJN, in a 6–5 vote, upheld the controversial reforms because the law sanctions abusers of the instrument and provides a counter-notice system to restore the removed material. Still, a counter-notice is not automatic (in 15 business days) and even if it is restored, freedom of expression would already be damaged, especially in political contexts. R3D has described the decision as "favoring commercial interests without paying attention to the terrible implications that these reforms cause in freedom of expression, privacy, security, competition, the economy of consumers, technological autonomy and the environment, betraying its obligation as guarantor of human rights".
United States
Political scientists have identified democratic backsliding in the United States for several decades. In recent years, many have credited figures like Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich with playing key roles in undermining democratic norms in the United States and hastening political polarization and partisanship in politics and society.
The 2016 presidential candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump prompted grave concerns among political scientists regarding accelerated democratic backsliding in the United States. In a 2019 journal article, political scientists Robert C. Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, and others wrote that Trump's presidency presented a threat to the American democratic order because it simultaneously brought together three specific trends—"polarized two-party presidentialism; a polity fundamentally divided over membership and status in the political community, in ways structured by race and economic inequality; and the erosion of democratic norms"—for the first time in American history. Lieberman noted that Donald Trump has "repeatedly challenged the very legitimacy of the basic mechanics and norms of the American electoral process, invoking the specter of mass voter fraud, encouraging voter suppression, selectively attacking the Electoral College, and even threatening to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power" and noted that "Never in the modern era has a presidential candidate threatened to lock up his opponent; castigated people so publicly and repeatedly on the basis of their country of origin, religion, sex, disability, or military service record; or operated with no evident regard for facts or truth." In 2020, political scientists Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon, wrote that "the Trump administration has consistently de-emphasized the importance of human rights and democracy in its rhetoric and while adopting language and tropes similar to those of right-wing, illiberal movements." Colley and Nexon cited Trump's praise of autocratic rulers, his echoing of ethno-nationalist rhetoric, his efforts to delegitimize journalism and journalists as "fake news" and his policies erecting new barriers to refugees and asylum-seekers as similar to politics "found in backsliding regimes".
Political scientist Pippa Norris wrote in 2021 that democratic backsliding under Trump culminated in his attempts to undermine the peaceful transfer of power and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump was defeated by Joe Biden.
The 2019 annual democracy report of the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg found that the U.S. under Trump was among the world's liberal democracies experiencing "democratic erosion" (but not full-scale "democratic breakdown"). The report cited an increase in "polarization of society and disrespect in public deliberations" as well as Trump's attacks on the media and opposition and attempts to contain the judiciary and the legislature. The report concluded, however, that "American institutions appear to be withstanding these attempts to a significant degree", noting that Democrats had won a majority the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, which "seems to have reversed the trajectory of an increasingly unconstrained executive". The V-Dem Institute's 2020 report found that the U.S. had "registered a substantial decline in liberal democracy" under Trump; the report also found that "the United States of America is the only country in Western Europe and North America suffering from substantial autocratization."
According to a 2020 study in the American Political Science Review, Americans value democracy but are frequently willing to prioritize partisan political gains over democracy if the two are in conflict. Scholars have identified U.S. federalism, the urban-rural divide, and the emergence of white identity politics as key drivers behind democratic backsliding in the U.S.
In 2021 a Freedom House report rated the U.S. 83 out of 100, an 11-point drop from its rating of 94 out of 100 in 2011, with an accelerated drop of 6 points under the first Trump-term alone. Issues such as institutional racism in the United States in relation to criminal justice and voting rights, the negative influence of campaign finance which Freedom House views is damaging public trust in government, and increased political polarization in the United States due to the extreme use of partisan gerrymandering were cited as reasons for the decline in the United States' rating. In 2024, the Freedom House the US's score remained at 83/100, deeming the country free.
In 2021 the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance added the United States to their list of backsliding democracies, pointing to Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as state voting laws that disproportionately impact minority groups.
Furthermore, stringent voter identification laws have been criticised for disproportionately impacting poor and ethnic minority voters in the US. A report published by the Brennan Center for Justice in 2011 stated ‘more than 1 in 10 voting-age citizens do not have current, government-issued photo ID. Some populations lack these documents at even higher rates: 25 percent of African-Americans, 16 percent of Hispanics, and 18 percent of Americans over age 65 do not have such ID’.
Turnout in US Elections has also been on a downward trend. Research conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2022 found that voter turnout in the US may have risen in the 2018 mid-term elections and the 2020 presidential election, it still trails behind many other countries. The American Presidency Project, conducted by UC Santa Barbara, found that US presidential election turnout has fluctuated between 49.9% and 60.9% between 1980 and 2020.
Women's reproductive freedoms have become increasingly controversial since the reversal of Roe v Wade in 2022 by the US Supreme Court. By 2023, 14 states enacted near-total abortion bans from the moment of conception; affecting nearly 22 million women. Research conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2022 found that 62% of people said that 'abortion should be legal in all or most cases'''.
Licence to discriminate laws has allowed discrimination against the LGBTQ community. This allows, for example, the refusal of healthcare provision based on moral or religious objections. The Human Rights Watch found in 2018 that ‘these laws fail to balance moral and religious objections to LGBT relationships and identities with the rights of LGBT people themselves’.
Following the return of Trump to the U.S. presidency in 2025, the expansion of executive power and the reduction of agency workforces and regulations by the Department of Government Efficiency has been described as having "raised fears of a threat to US democracy". Freedom House has described the pardon of January 6 United States Capitol attack defendants as an attempt to "excuse a violent assault on a key element of democracy". Political scientists, scholars, and others have increasingly characterized Trump's actions as authoritarian and fascist, such as Steven Levitsky, who found the first two months of the second Trump administration to be the most aggressively and openly authoritarian case of democratic backsliding that he has seen, expressing particular concern about attacks on the courts. Similarly, Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, has warned that the United States is heading towards 1930s-style authoritarian policies.
Central America El Salvador
El Salvador has been described as undergoing democratic backsliding after the election of President Nayib Bukele, particularly following the 2020 crisis, when Bukele sent Salvadoran Army soldiers into the Legislative Assembly to pressure and intimidate members of the Assembly. In a June 2020 report, the V-Dem Institute wrote that El Salvador was "at high risk of pandemic backsliding" and that the country was one of several countries with "severe" violations of democratic standards of emergency measures, including: arbitrary mass arrests by security forces of persons deemed to violate social distancing rules (in contravention of a number of decisions of the Supreme Court).
In May 2021, supporters of Bukele in the Legislative Assembly dismissed El Salvador's judges of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General. The Organization of American States condemned the dismissals, declaring that they were undermining democratic principles.