politicsanalysisOur World in Data
Most democracies today are younger than the oldest people living in them
Most countries that count as electoral democracies have been democratic for only a few decades, which means many of their citizens are older than the democracy itself. Modern democracy spread in waves: a wave after the Second World War, another in the 1970s and 1980s, and a third after the Cold War ended. Many countries had elections earlier but were not fully democratic, with limited voting rights, restrictions on opposition and weak courts. The age of a democracy depends on when voting became free, fair and broadly open to all adults, which is a stricter test than simply holding elections. Because the oldest democracies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have only a few long-established cases, most democracies are relatively new.
Democracy is less a settled default than a recent and fragile experiment in many places, so its institutions and norms are still forming. Understanding its age helps explain why democratic backsliding can happen even where elections are regular.
Democratic waves have been studied since the political scientist Samuel Huntington described three waves of democratization in the twentieth century. Each wave was followed by periods of reversal, when some newly democratic countries returned to authoritarian rule. Whether a democracy lasts often depends on its institutions, economic conditions and the strength of its courts and civic life.
