Global democracy in 2026: what’s on the horizon?

“We the people”: 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, US democracy is a contested topic. EPA / Olga Fedorova

In 2026, “AI slop” will submerge the internet, a pioneer of illiberal democracy faces a tough election, and the pioneer of liberal democracy celebrates its 250th birthday.

Since the dawn of time, people have likely been gathering to make collective decisions or to elect representatives. Today, however, our understanding of democracy is unthinkable without something more: the principle of equality and individual rights accorded by modern liberal states.

In 2026, this liberal form of democracy marks a big birthday: 250 years ago, declaring that “all men are created equal”, 13 breakaway colonies established the United States of America – a nation that persists today.

In 1778, before the first US presidential election, a politician and businessman from the Swiss town of Biel, Johann Rudolph Valltravers, wrote to Benjamin Franklin with a plea: “Let us jointly maintain the rights of humanity, legal liberty, toleration, and property secured to honest industry! Let us enjoy the well-earned blessings of peace, encourage arts and sciences, and be the asylum to its oppressed votaries!”

The appeal is no less relevant today. Yet in the coming year, with democracy facing various tests around the world, it risks coming up short.

1. The line between democracy and security continues to blur

It’s not new that democracies are worried about external attempts to undermine them.

In 2026, the Council of Europe wants to make this explicit by ensuring that boosting military security on the continent goes hand in hand with boosting democratic security. Its “New Democratic PactExternal link” will drive discussions among its 46 member states on things like election integrity. The Council is also working towards a Convention on disinformation and foreign interference.

The European Union is doing something similar. Its “Democracy ShieldExternal link” includes measures to protect free speech, democratic institutions, and civil society across the 27-member bloc: it plans to fund independent journalism, foster media and digital literacy, and set up a new European Centre for Democratic Resilience. “Democracy is our first line of defence,” said EU Commissioner Michael McGrath at the launch in November 2025.

As for Switzerland, it has tended to tread cautiously on such issues: while it recognises that foreign actors, mostly Russia and China, are engaged in influence campaigns, it has so far been hesitant to introduce specific laws to tackle disinformation.

>> Read more about how what starts as ‘mere’ reputational damage can become a security threat:

2. AI slop spills into big election campaigns

In 2026, election campaigns around the world will be flooded by cheaply produced and mass-distributed videos and images made by artificial intelligence (AI).

Already in 2025, AI slop has been “hardening into the outer shells of our cultural institutions and social spheres” like a layer of “sedimentary rock”, culture journalist Brian Merchant recently wrote. This also applies to political communications, like kitschy landscape images produced by the US Department of Homeland Security, or videos of Donald Trump flying over New York in a fighter jet, dropping what looks like a pile of faeces on protestors below.

Having entered the White House, AI slop has thus managed to pervade official institutions in a very short time – expect it to be a feature of many elections in 2026.

This will probably result in more negative campaigning. A few years ago, each decision to produce a campaign video involved budgetary considerations; such videos now come for free. And since content is artificially generated and can be sent out via anonymous accounts, political actors are less likely to have qualms about aggressive or dishonest messaging.

3. Party crasher: midterms and 1776 celebrations in the US

A few years ago, it would just have been an anniversary: a commemoration of the founding of the first modern republic which took it for granted that all people – all white men, initially – were born equal. People would have looked back, and they would have reflected about the history of slavery in the US and how long it took for the principle of equality to be extended to women and black people.

The celebrations will likely be more strained in 2026. Now that some academics see a major shift towards autocracy in the US, and with crucial congressional elections coming up, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the nation is likely to be a battleground for a historical war of interpretations. The opposition Democrats will probably focus mainly on the values of the Declaration of Independence; Trump’s Republicans will highlight the struggle for nationhood in the War of Independence.

A year later, in 2027, Switzerland will also mark an anniversary: 180 years since the last war on its soil, before it would also go on to become a federal state. The Swiss parliament, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, is modelled on the US system. However, the Swiss anniversary is unlikely to be controversial: although the institutions partly mirror those in their big “sister republic”, polarisation in the Alpine nation is much less acute.

>> Read more about the transatlantic ties between the US and Switzerland in our focus page:

4. The pioneer of ‘illiberal democracy’ faces a test

In a speech in Zurich in 2023, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his country and Switzerland had one big problem in common: the EU, which is “full of bureaucrats instead of politicians”.

Switzerland and Hungary have less in common when it comes to democratic standards. Since Orbán came to power in 2010, constitutional and legal changes by his Fidesz party have steadily weakened the rule of law, press freedom, and minority rights, effectively turning Hungary into a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”, in the viewExternal link of the European Parliament. Orbán himself, while he complains about being vilified in the West, is open about his conservative project: the goal is an “illiberal” democracy, he said in 2014.

During his trip to Switzerland in November 2023, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (right) also met with the Swiss President at the time, Alain Berset. Keystone / Marcel Bieri

In 2026, he will be fighting to keep this project going. Ahead of parliamentary elections in April, polls have shown his party trailing behind Tisza, a group founded in 2024 by former Orbán ally Péter Magyar. What a new prime minister would mean is hard to predict: in an interviewExternal link with the Financial Times, Magyar presented himself as an anti-Orbán – less friendly towards Russia, and more committed to the EU and NATO.

But whatever the outcome, given the fascination Orbán holds for conservatives elsewhere, including in the US, the elections will be closely watched. In Europe, the vote also marks a highlight in a 2026 calendar which is otherwise rather empty of major elections.

5. Bangladesh, Brazil and Israel: voting in times of democratic backsliding

Beyond Europe, several pivotal elections are due to take place in 2026, all of them in countries where democracy has faced challenges of varying types in the past few years.

In February, Bangladesh will hold its first elections since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid student protests in August 2024. Muhammad Yunus, the head of the interim government, has framed the vote as a chance to start a “new Bangladesh” after years of autocratisation under Hasina. The elections will be held along with a referendum on the “July Declaration”, a programmatic outline for pluralistic democracy and the rule of law in the country.

In Brazil, the past two presidential elections have seen a symmetry with the US: in 2018, in the middle of Donald Trump’s first term in Washington, right-wing Jair Bolsonaro won in Brazil; in 2022, during Joe Biden’s presidency, left-wing Lula got back into power. This year, the pattern shouldn’t repeat itself: after being convicted for his involvement in an attempted coup, Bolsonaro won’t be running. Much could hinge on whether his allies pledge to pardon him if elected, or whether they would respect the conviction, which has been describedExternal link as a “historic moment for accountability” in the country. Lula, now 80, is running again.

Finally, Israel is due to hold elections this year, with long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taking centre stage again. His current term was marked not just by war in Gaza but by some democratic question marks: in 2023, a proposed justice reform sparked street protests; Netanyahu is also personally facing long-standing corruption charges. Polls suggest his Likud party may struggle to retain power. But he has a prominent backer: US President Trump.

Edited by Mark Livingston/ts