Strengthening Institutions: A Plan for Trust, Democracy and the Rule of Law, Seen from September 2026

Introduction

Institutions are the rules and organisations that let people settle disputes, choose and remove leaders, collect and spend public money, and hold the powerful to account. Their working rarely makes news, and their failure tends to show up as something else: a famine that a free press would have exposed, a war that a legislature might have checked, aid money that disappears between the treasury and the village. Amartya Sen’s observation that no substantial famine has occurred in an independent democracy with a relatively free press is the best-known statement of the link. A review of 22 famine events in post-colonial Africa found that 59 percent occurred under closed autocracies, 36 percent under electoral autocracies and one under an electoral democracy, Nigeria in 2016, where the northeast was cut off by war and journalists faced threats (World Peace Foundation).

This essay treats weak and weakening institutions as a species-level problem because they shape how well humanity handles every other one on this site. It sets out a plan that people of different political views could support, tests that plan against events of 2025 and 2026, and ends with a short list of priorities. Where the evidence or the values are contested, the essay says so and states each position as its holders would.

Where things stand

Every major index of democratic quality shows more countries getting worse than getting better, although the indices differ in method and in how much decline they find.

The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg counts 92 autocracies and 87 democracies at the end of 2025, with 74 percent of the world’s people living in autocracies, and reports that for the average person the level of democracy is back to where it was in 1978 (V-Dem). Allowing for “grey zone” cases, it puts the number of democracies anywhere from 74 to 95. Only 18 countries were democratizing, among them Brazil and Poland (V-Dem press release). For the first time, six of the ten newly autocratizing countries were in Europe and North America, including the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States. V-Dem found that the United States’ liberal democracy score fell 24 percent in one year and its world rank dropped from 20th to 51st.

Freedom House recorded a 20th consecutive year of net decline, with 54 countries worse and 35 better, and 21 percent of the world’s people in countries rated Free, down from 46 percent two decades earlier. Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Madagascar and El Salvador had the largest falls in 2025, while Bolivia, Fiji and Malawi moved from Partly Free to Free. The United States dropped three points to 81 of 100, its lowest score since the 0 to 100 scale began in 2002. Of the 87 countries rated Free in 2005, 76 have stayed Free (Freedom House).

International IDEA finds that 94 of 174 countries declined on at least one measure of democratic performance over five years. Rule of law is the weakest area, with 71 countries (41 percent) in IDEA’s low-performing band, and the report records the broadest decline in press freedom since its data begin in 1975 (International IDEA).

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025 put the global average at 42 of 100, the lowest in over a decade. Only five countries score above 80, against 12 a decade ago, and established democracies including the United States (64), the United Kingdom (70), France (66) and Canada (75) slipped. Of the 50 biggest decliners, 36 had restricted civic freedoms (Transparency International).

The OECD’s survey of 30 member countries found that 44 percent of people have low or no trust in their national government, against 39 percent with high or moderately high trust. The gap in trust between people who feel they have a say in what government does and those who feel they do not is 47 percentage points, and only about 30 percent believe their government can resist corporate influence (OECD). In the United States, Pew Research Center found in September 2025 that 17 percent of adults trust the federal government to do what is right always or most of the time, compared with 73 percent in 1958 (Pew Research Center). The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey of 28 countries, found that 70 percent are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values or information sources (Edelman via PR Newswire).

On inequality, the World Inequality Report 2026 estimates that the top 10 percent of adults hold 75 percent of global wealth and receive about 53 percent of global income, while the bottom half hold 2 percent of wealth and receive 8 percent of income (LSE Inequalities blog). The World Bank’s figures point in a different direction on the question of change over time: the global Gini index fell from 70 in 1990 to 62 in 2019 as incomes in populous countries such as China grew faster than in rich ones, before the pandemic produced the largest one-year rise since at least 1990 (World Bank). Within countries, the number of economies with high inequality (a Gini above 40) fell from 72 in 1995 to 43 in 2024 (World Bank Atlas).

Part I: The plan

1. Protect the machinery of elections

The plan asks national legislatures to put election administration in the hands of bodies whose members are appointed with cross-party agreement and cannot be dismissed for their rulings; to require voter-verifiable paper records and routine post-election audits; to admit domestic and international observers; and to settle disputes in courts with fixed deadlines. Donors and regional bodies such as the African Union, the Organization of American States and the OSCE should fund observation and treat the exclusion of major candidates as grounds for withholding recognition. These measures protect whichever party is out of power, and the evidence that they matter comes from the difference between countries where an incumbent can lose and accept the loss, and those where the opposition is barred before voting begins.

2. Keep courts, auditors and prosecutors independent

The plan calls for secure tenure and budgets for judges, supreme audit institutions and anti-corruption prosecutors, with appointment rules that require broad agreement. In a randomized experiment across more than 600 village road projects in Indonesia, raising the probability of a central government audit from 4 percent to 100 percent reduced missing expenditures by about 8 percentage points, a cost-effective result; community monitoring alone had a much smaller effect (Olken, NBER).

3. Follow the money

The plan asks governments to keep registers of the real (beneficial) owners of companies and trusts, open to law enforcement and, with privacy safeguards, to journalists and banks; to publish public contracts in open, machine-readable form; and to enforce foreign bribery laws against their own companies. Ukraine’s ProZorro system, which since 2015 has placed all government procurement online with auctions as the default method, is the leading example. An evaluation by researchers from the Kyiv School of Economics and the Center for Global Development found evidence that the system increased the number of bidders, lowered costs and shortened contracting times (Center for Global Development).

4. Defend a free press and an open information space

Early warning of famine and abuse depends on journalists who can report safely. Transparency International counts 150 journalists killed since 2012 while covering corruption outside conflict zones, more than 90 percent of them in countries scoring below 50 on its index (Transparency International). The plan calls for legal protection against abusive defamation suits, public funding of local news through arm’s-length bodies, transparency about who pays for political advertising, and disclosure by large platforms of how their ranking systems treat political content. It avoids giving any government the power to declare what is true, because that power would pass to whoever holds office next.

5. Make government visibly work, and give people a real say

The OECD survey shows people are fairly satisfied with day-to-day services such as administrative services (66 percent) and education (57 percent) but doubt their governments on long-term, contested decisions (OECD). The plan asks governments to publish service standards and results, to fix failures that citizens can see, and to use structured forms of participation for divisive questions. Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly, 99 randomly selected citizens chaired by a former Supreme Court judge, deliberated on the constitutional ban on abortion; its work fed into the referendum of May 2018 that replaced the ban (Wikipedia: Citizens’ Assembly (Ireland)). Such bodies are advisory and inexpensive.

6. Keep emergency and war powers under legislative control

The Ending War essay on this site argues that leaders who do not bear the costs of war start more of them. The same principle applies to emergency powers of all kinds. The plan calls for legislatures to set time limits on declared emergencies, to require votes to extend them, and to reassert their constitutional role in decisions to go to war and to impose taxes, including tariffs.

7. Sustain democracy and governance support abroad, cheaply and locally

Democracy and anti-corruption groups in poorer countries have depended heavily on a few donors. The plan asks donor governments, including new ones in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America, to give flexible, multi-year core funding directly to local organisations, and asks recipient organisations to diversify their funding. The sums involved are small by the standards of national budgets: the United States appropriated $315 million for the National Endowment for Democracy in fiscal 2026.

8. Broaden opportunity and protect the tax base

The plan supports international cooperation against profit shifting, the exchange of tax information between governments, and investment in education, which the World Inequality Report calls the closest thing to a universal equaliser (LSE Inequalities blog). It leaves the rate and shape of taxes on high incomes and wealth to national politics, where the disagreement belongs.

Sequencing

In the first two years, the priorities are the inexpensive ones: election administration and observation ahead of scheduled votes, audit and procurement transparency, and protection for journalists. Over five to ten years, governments can rebuild service performance and participation and settle tax cooperation.

What makes it stick

Reforms tend to last when each side expects to be in opposition at some point. Independent election commissions, audit offices and courts protect whichever party is out of power, and the argument for them is strongest when made by a governing party about itself. Reforms also stick when they produce visible savings, as procurement transparency does, and when citizens can use the data directly.

Where reasonable people disagree

How much decline is real. Some political scientists argue that expert-coded indices overstate backsliding. Andrew Little and Anne Meng found that objective measures, such as how often incumbents lose elections and the vote shares of winners, show little aggregate decline, and suggested that coders may be influenced by news coverage (Little and Meng, PS: Political Science & Politics). V-Dem researchers replied that “objective” measures also rely on judgment, that expert score revisions show no pessimistic drift, and that the balance of evidence shows genuine backsliding (Knutsen et al., PS: Political Science & Politics). Single-year changes deserve caution; trends that several indices share deserve more weight.

Whether inequality matters in itself. One view holds that concentrated wealth buys political influence, fuels resentment and wastes talent. Another view holds that what matters is whether the poor are getting better off, and points to the three decades before 2020 in which the global Gini index fell. Both can accept the plan’s focus on opportunity and a fair tax base while disagreeing about wealth taxes and top rates.

Who should police information. Some governments want state or supranational bodies to identify and remove foreign disinformation. Others see that as a risk to free expression and prefer transparency requirements and counter-speech.

How far the executive branch should be insulated from elected leaders. Some hold that independent regulators and civil servants protect the public from short-term political pressure. Others hold that officials who exercise executive power should answer to an elected president or minister, and that insulation makes government less accountable to voters.

Whether to promote democracy abroad. Supporters see democracy assistance as cheap insurance against war, famine and migration. Critics see it as interference in other countries’ affairs, or as money better spent at home.

Part II: The plan in the world of September 2026

Elections: a peaceful transfer in Hungary, and coups and closed contests in Africa

On 12 April 2026, Péter Magyar’s Tisza party won 53.6 percent of the vote to 37.8 percent for Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, on a record turnout for the post-communist era, and took about two-thirds of parliamentary seats. Orbán, in power for 16 years, conceded on election night (Al Jazeera). V-Dem had classified Hungary as an electoral autocracy, yet an honest count and a conceding incumbent allowed voters to change the government.

In Tanzania, before the election of 29 October 2025, the main opposition party, Chadema, was disqualified and its leader Tundu Lissu arrested on treason charges. President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner with 97.66 percent. The Southern African Development Community called the vote “not free, not fair”; death tolls from the crackdown on protests remain disputed, from at least 10 confirmed by the UN human rights office to claims by Chadema of more than 1,000 (Wikipedia: 2025 Tanzanian general election). In Guinea-Bissau, soldiers seized power on 26 November 2025, the day before results of a presidential election were due, in a contest from which the main opposition party had been barred. The transitional authorities have scheduled elections for 6 December 2026 (Wikipedia: 2025 Guinea-Bissau coup). Both cases fit the plan’s warning that the exclusion of candidates precedes the breakdown of the vote.

Youth protest movements and the corruption they target

A wave of youth-led protests in 2025 showed how quickly visible corruption can bring down governments. In Nepal, protests that began against a ban on social media platforms and against the displayed wealth of politicians’ children toppled Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli in September 2025. In Madagascar, protests over water and power cuts ended with the military removing President Andry Rajoelina in October 2025 (Council on Foreign Relations). Nepal then held elections, and on 27 March 2026 Balendra Shah, a 35-year-old former mayor of Kathmandu known for his anti-corruption stance, became prime minister; the former prime minister and interior minister were placed in custody over the killing of protesters. In Madagascar, a military-led interim government with no protest figures in it has promised elections by late 2027. In Morocco, more than 5,000 people were arrested and about 2,000 remained imprisoned in April 2026. In Bangladesh, youth-led parties struggled to turn the 2024 uprising into votes in the February 2026 election (France 24).

Protesters in these countries were responding to corruption they could see and services that failed, which is the territory of elements 3 and 5 of the plan. Where elections followed, as in Nepal, protest produced a government with a mandate; where soldiers stepped in, as in Madagascar, it did not.

Courts and legislatures test the limits of executive power in the United States

In the United States, the courts and Congress have tested element 6 and the insulation of the executive branch. On 20 February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in Learning Resources v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorise the president to impose tariffs; the administration has since used other statutory authorities (Wikipedia: Learning Resources v. Trump). At the end of June, in Trump v. Slaughter, the Court ruled 6 to 3 that the president may remove members of independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission at will, overruling the 1935 precedent Humphrey’s Executor; in Trump v. Cook, decided at the same time, it held 5 to 4 that a Federal Reserve governor keeps for-cause protection (CBS News; Wikipedia: Trump v. Slaughter).

These rulings cut in different directions. Supporters of Slaughter see it as restoring accountability: officials who wield executive power now answer to an elected president. Critics fear the loss of independent regulators whose value lay in their distance from politics. The tariff ruling, by contrast, reasserted Congress’s control over taxation. In both cases the courts functioned as the plan expects: they decided, and the other branches responded through lawful means.

Congress has also tested its war powers over the Iran war that began on 28 February 2026. The House voted 215 to 208 on 3 June to direct the removal of US forces from hostilities with Iran, and the Senate approved the measure 50 to 48 in June, with four Republicans voting in favour and one Democrat against. Because it was a concurrent resolution, it does not carry the force of law, and the president said he would not be constrained (Al Jazeera; PBS NewsHour). The votes put Congress on record, but the procedure used gave them no binding effect.

Following the money: mixed signals

Element 3 has lost ground in the largest economy. In March 2025, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an interim rule exempting all domestic companies from reporting their beneficial owners under the Corporate Transparency Act, and it made that exemption permanent in a final rule effective 14 August 2026; only foreign companies registering to do business in the United States must still report (FinCEN). Supporters of the change regard the reporting duty as an undue burden on small businesses; critics argue that anonymous domestic companies remain open to misuse by money launderers. Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was paused by executive order on 10 February 2025 and resumed under new guidelines on 9 June 2025, which focus prosecutors on large bribery schemes, cases linked to cartels and national security, and harm to US companies’ competitiveness (Paul, Weiss).

International tax cooperation, part of element 8, has moved on two tracks. On 5 January 2026, the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework agreed a “side-by-side” arrangement that exempts US-headquartered multinationals from the main enforcement rules of the global minimum tax from 2026 (EY). Its defenders say it preserved the agreement by recognising US taxing sovereignty; the FACT Coalition, a US transparency group, argues it weakens the minimum tax because US rules let companies blend high- and low-tax profits across countries (FACT Coalition). Separately, negotiations at the United Nations on a framework convention on international tax cooperation held their fifth session in August 2026 and are due to resume on 30 November, with completion targeted for 2027 (IISD).

Information and trust: record lows and a contested European response

The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report found trust in news at 37 percent across 48 markets and 25 percent in the United States; 62 percent of respondents worry about telling real from fake online, and weekly use of AI chatbots for news rose to 10 percent (Reuters Institute). In November 2025, the European Commission proposed a European Democracy Shield, including a European Centre for Democratic Resilience to counter foreign information manipulation and a programme to fund independent journalism (Eunews). Supporters point to Russian influence campaigns; critics, including Italian MEPs from the Five Star Movement, warned that the Commission has no authority to decide what counts as fake news. The plan’s preference for transparency and funding over official truth-setting offers a path that both sides could accept.

Democracy support abroad has shrunk

Element 7 took the largest financial blow. A study by International IDEA and IFES for the Global Democracy Coalition found that nearly 70 percent of US-funded democracy, rights and governance programmes were terminated in 2025, more than 1,600 grants worth over $14 billion in more than 120 countries. Nearly half of the organisations surveyed had relied on the United States for at least half their budgets (Global Democracy Coalition). Congress did preserve part of the base. The fiscal 2026 appropriations law, enacted on 29 January 2026, provided $51.3 billion for international affairs, 16 percent below 2025 but well above the administration’s $31 billion request, and kept the National Endowment for Democracy at $315 million after the House rejected an amendment to eliminate it by 291 to 127 (USGLC). The margin of that vote shows support for the Endowment in both parties even as broader aid was cut.

These cuts came alongside the 2025 cuts to food aid described in the Ending Starvation essay, and they removed some of the groups that report famine and abuse in places such as Sudan, which Freedom House scores at 1 out of 100.

Inequality: the data and the debate both sharpened

The World Inequality Report 2026 found that the wealth of the top 0.001 percent, about 56,000 people, rose from about 4 percent of global wealth in 1995 to about 6 percent in 2025, and recommends progressive taxation and public investment in education (LSE Inequalities blog). The Edelman survey links economic anxiety to insularity, with 54 percent of low-income respondents expecting to be left behind by generative AI (Edelman via PR Newswire). Those who put absolute gains first can point to the World Bank’s long decline in global inequality and in the number of highly unequal countries. The OECD finding that only about 30 percent of people think their government can resist corporate influence suggests where the common ground lies: a tax base that large firms and fortunes cannot opt out of.

Part III: Revised priorities for the next 6 to 12 months

Fund observation and election administration for the votes ahead, including Guinea-Bissau’s scheduled election on 6 December 2026 and Madagascar’s promised transition, and press for the reinstatement of barred candidates where exclusion has occurred.
Replace a portion of lost democracy and governance funding through flexible grants to local organisations, with European, Asian, Gulf and Latin American donors sharing the cost.
Scale open contracting and independent audit, particularly for reconstruction spending in Ukraine, Syria and Gaza, where large sums may move quickly.
Close the anonymous-company gap by other means where national registers have narrowed, for example through bank due-diligence rules and cooperation between financial intelligence units.
Protect journalists and publish political advertising data before major elections, and prefer transparency obligations on platforms over state determinations of truth.
Use the UN tax talks resuming on 30 November and the OECD process to agree practical information exchange and measures against profit shifting that both high- and low-income countries can accept.
Give legislatures workable tools on war and emergency powers, such as automatic sunsets on emergencies, since the Iran war votes showed the limits of non-binding resolutions.

Conclusion

The events of 2025 and 2026 bear out the plan’s emphasis on elections and accountability. Hungarian voters removed a long-serving government because the count was honest and the loser conceded, while the barring of opposition candidates in Tanzania and Guinea-Bissau was followed by deadly unrest in one case and a coup in the other. Youth movements angered by visible corruption brought down governments in Nepal and Madagascar, with better results in the country that moved quickly to elections. In the United States, the courts decided major questions of executive power in both directions and the other branches worked within the results.

The plan is weakest on money and information, since democracy support has been cut sharply, beneficial ownership disclosure has narrowed in the world’s largest economy and trust in news is at a record low. Each of these gaps can be narrowed at modest cost. The indices disagree about the size of the decline, and citizens disagree about inequality and the reach of the state, but agreement is wider on honest vote counts and traceable public money, and a plan built on those rules is one that policymakers of any party can adopt.

Events are moving quickly; this essay reflects reporting available as of 28 September 2026.

Sources

Democracy, freedom and corruption indices

Trust and information

Inequality

Evidence for the plan

Elections and protest movements

Courts, legislatures and executive power

Money, tax and aid