Democracy as we know it – free elections, equal rights and independent courts – is barely a century old in most countries. Its spread after 1945 and after 1989 was one of the great changes in human history. In 1800, no country allowed all adults to vote; today, 190 countries do.
The right to vote spread just as fast: New Zealand became the first country to let women vote in 1893. Today, almost every country in the world grants the vote to all adult men and women.
The global trend has reversed: after peaking around 2000, the share of people living in democracies has roughly halved by this measure, partly because several populous countries were reclassified as electoral autocracies. Democracy is not guaranteed – it depends on citizens and institutions that defend it.