Trend · rank 14 of 250

Erosion of rights & civic freedoms

Restrictions on association, expression, media and opposition are widening in many states, removing the independent scrutiny and feedback that governments need to detect and correct their own failures.

Governance & IntegrityState capacity & governancepoliticsinstitutionsinformation

Second pass: Carried forward from the first pass unchanged. Held by all three panel models.

Attention over three years

How much this trend is read about on Wikipedia and searched for on Google, week by week, set against the typical trend in the list so that what moves every trend at once is taken out. 100 is this trend's own three-year average. The score measures public attention, which is not the same as the strength of the force: a trend can deepen unnoticed, and a news event can lift attention for a fortnight.

Share of attention: 0.61%rank 46 of 250 · a year earlier 0.73%
Now: 81
Over a year: −12%Steady
Over three years: −22%
Peak: 16328 Apr 2024
Sources: Bothagreement 0.51
Coverage: 18languages · 48 nations

Trailing 4-week average. 100 is this trend’s three-year average.

By language

Wikipedia reading in each language edition where the trend’s pages are read enough to measure (18 of 28). Share is of all the readers counted.

Language	Share	Now	Over a year
English	56%	97	−13%
German	8%	74	−30%
Russian	6%	91	−8%
Japanese	6%	92	+5%
Chinese	6%	105	+20%
French	4%	95	−7%
Italian	3%	82	+6%
Spanish	3%	145	+61%
Arabic	1%	86	+14%
Turkish	1%	119	+9%
Portuguese	1%	134	+37%
Korean	1%	124	+32%
Polish	1%	93	−25%
Persian	1%	124	+32%
Ukrainian	1%	100	+31%
Hebrew	1%	99	+80%
Dutch	0%	71	−21%
Bengali	0%	118	+76%

By country

Google search interest over the three years, as a share of each country’s searching. 100 is the nation where interest is highest. The search terms are English, which favours countries that search in English.

100

The 12 highest of 48 nations with a reading. All countries (CSV).

By region and G20 member

Attention to this trend inside each place, from Google searches made in its countries and Wikipedia reading in the languages mostly read there, averaged where both exist. Each line compares the trend with its own past in that place; the lines do not compare places.

Regions

Place	Read from	Now	90 days	1 year	3 years
North America	Google in 2 countries + Wikipedia in English	85	+9%	−22%	−23%
Europe	Google in 4 countries + Wikipedia in German, French, Italian, Polish, Dutch	75	−13%	−24%	−39%
Indo-Pacific	Google in 7 countries + Wikipedia in Japanese, Chinese, Korean	94	−1%	+1%	−17%
South Asia	Google in 1 country + Wikipedia in Bengali	103	+33%	+24%	−1%
Gulf and Middle East	Wikipedia in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew	106	+6%	+25%	+10%
Africa	Google in 2 countries	53	−56%	+1%	−42%
Latin America and Caribbean	Google in 2 countries + Wikipedia in Spanish, Portuguese	101	−4%	+21%	+7%
Russia and Eurasia	Wikipedia in Russian, Ukrainian	93	+14%	−2%	−30%

G20 members

Place	Read from	Now	90 days	1 year	3 years
Australia	Google	87	+22%	−25%	−13%
Brazil	Google + Wikipedia in Portuguese	112	+31%	+18%	+3%
Canada	Google	76	+1%	−37%	−36%
France	Google + Wikipedia in French	80	+5%	−6%	−41%
Germany	Google + Wikipedia in German	73	−24%	−28%	−39%
India	Google + Wikipedia in Bengali	103	+33%	+24%	−1%
Indonesia	Google	54	−27%	−9%	−54%
Italy	Google + Wikipedia in Italian	75	−8%	−6%	−38%
Japan	Google + Wikipedia in Japanese	98	+7%	−8%	−10%
South Korea	Google + Wikipedia in Korean	138	+13%	+119%	+69%
Mexico	Google	26	−78%	−52%	−67%
Russia	Wikipedia in Russian	91	+7%	−8%	−28%
South Africa	Google	72	−42%	−21%	+68%
Türkiye	Wikipedia in Turkish	119	+13%	+9%	+31%
United Kingdom	Google	63	−24%	−57%	−41%
United States	Google + Wikipedia in English	85	+14%	−21%	−26%

GINC Share of Attention: this trend's share of all the public attention the trends in the list draw, worldwide and in each region, week by week (a 4-week average). Each place is read from the Wikipedia languages mostly read there and Google searching in its countries; where a place's language is shared with others, as English is, Google stands alone.

Place	Share, last 13 weeks	Rank there	A year earlier	Read from
World	0.61%	46 of 250	0.73%	Wikipedia reading in all 28 languages, and Google searching worldwide
Asia Pacific	0.40%	73 of 250	0.40%	Wikipedia reading in the region's own languages, not English; Google searching in 15 countries, not China
Europe	0.24%	103 of 250	0.32%	German, French, Italian, Polish, Dutch and Swedish reading; Google searching in 10 countries, the UK among them
Africa	0.16%	109 of 250	0.24%	Google searching in 7 countries; Afrikaans and Swahili reading reaches too few trends to count
South America	0.21%	124 of 250	0.16%	Spanish and Portuguese reading, Spanish also read in Spain; Google searching in 5 countries
North America	0.84%	26 of 249	1.3%	Google searching in the United States, Canada and Mexico; English reading cannot be split by country
Oceania	0.59%	42 of 249	0.70%	Google searching in Australia and New Zealand; English reading cannot be split by country
United States	1.2%	17 of 249	1.7%	Google searching; English reading cannot be split by country
United Kingdom	0.32%	64 of 249	0.45%	Google searching; English reading cannot be split by country
India	0.20%	78 of 249	0.09%	Google searching; Hindi, Bengali and Tamil reading reaches too few trends to count, and English cannot be split by country
China	·	·	·	Wikipedia and Google are blocked in China; no open source counts reading there
Russia	0.42%	68 of 203	0.45%	Russian reading, which is also done across the former Soviet states; Google's figures for Russia cannot be bought
Japan	0.47%	70 of 250	0.54%	Japanese reading and Google searching
Germany	0.27%	94 of 250	0.35%	German reading and Google searching
France	0.16%	127 of 250	0.25%	French reading, also done in Africa and Canada, and Google searching
Italy	0.37%	65 of 250	0.41%	Italian reading and Google searching
South Korea	0.26%	101 of 250	0.28%	Korean reading and Google searching
Indonesia	0.07%	135 of 250	0.10%	Google searching; Indonesian reading reaches too few trends to count
Brazil	0.25%	103 of 250	0.13%	Portuguese reading and Google searching
Türkiye	0.00%	170 of 250	0.00%	Google searching; Turkish reading reaches too few trends to count

Relation to each scenario

A trend relates to a scenario when it changes how likely the scenario is, how hard it lands, or is itself sharply changed by it. Each score is the median of three scores given separately by the members of the model panel.

Relation	Scenario	Family
5 · Very high	A disputed transfer of power breaks effective government S05	Geopolitical and security
3 · Moderate	Hybrid coercion ends in an infrastructure blackout S04	Geopolitical and security
3 · Moderate	A novel respiratory pathogen exceeds health surge capacity S10	Health
2 · Low	A verified Middle East settlement restores access S14 ↗	Geopolitical and security
2 · Low	A public service platform reaches inclusive operation S18 ↗	Technology and infrastructure
1 · Very low	A global funding seizure reaches sovereign balance sheets S02	Economic and trade
1 · Very low	A regional war closes a globally important sea route S03	Geopolitical and security
1 · Very low	Two breadbasket failures trigger a food availability crisis S06	Energy, climate and resources
1 · Very low	A major disaster disables the national economic core S07	Energy, climate and resources
1 · Very low	A creditor agreement releases fiscal capacity S11 ↗	Economic and trade
1 · Very low	A validated farming package raises water-efficient output S16 ↗	Energy, climate and resources
1 · Very low	Affordable preventive treatments reduce chronic illness S19 ↗	Health
1 · Very low	A live outbreak proves rapid distributed pandemic defence S20 ↗	Health
0 · Not related	Critical trade divides into rival blocs S01	Economic and trade
0 · Not related	An AI deployment step causes abrupt labour displacement S08	Technology and infrastructure
0 · Not related	A cryptographic breakthrough invalidates digital trust S09	Technology and infrastructure
0 · Not related	A cross-regional market access compact redirects investment S12 ↗	Economic and trade
0 · Not related	A great-power agreement lowers economic security barriers S13 ↗	Geopolitical and security
0 · Not related	Cheap firm clean power becomes available at scale S15 ↗	Energy, climate and resources
0 · Not related	AI-directed research produces a reproducible discovery step S17 ↗	Technology and infrastructure

Similarity = 0.3 × shared tags (Jaccard) + 0.3 × likeness of scenario profiles (cosine) + 0.3 × likeness of names and descriptions (TF-IDF cosine) + 0.1 if in the same capability domain, cut into seven levels at 0.12, 0.22, 0.33, 0.45, 0.58, 0.72. Shown at Moderate and above.

Similarity	Trend	Theme	Rank
5 · Very high	Decline of independent journalism	Information & trust	29
4 · High	State capacity & delivery	State capacity & governance	1
4 · High	Rule of law & judicial independence	State capacity & governance	3
4 · High	Executive overreach & emergency powers	State capacity & governance	4
4 · High	Corruption & state capture	State capacity & governance	5
4 · High	Declining institutional trust	Information & trust	7
4 · High	Polarisation & populism	State capacity & governance	15
4 · High	Civil unrest & protest mobilisation	State capacity & governance	25
4 · High	Election integrity & interference	Information & trust	57
4 · High	Citizen participation & deliberative democracy	State capacity & governance	60
3 · Moderate	Civil service capability & pay	State capacity & governance	2
3 · Moderate	Public procurement capability	State capacity & governance	6
3 · Moderate	Regulatory capture & lobbying power	State capacity & governance	8
3 · Moderate	Public communication in crisis	Information & trust	10
3 · Moderate	Local & city government capacity	State capacity & governance	11
3 · Moderate	Social protection coverage gaps	State capacity & governance	13
3 · Moderate	Fiscal rules & budget credibility	State capacity & governance	17
3 · Moderate	Official statistics & data capacity	State capacity & governance	21
3 · Moderate	Outsourcing & public-private delivery	State capacity & governance	27
3 · Moderate	Misinformation & disinformation	Information & trust	30
3 · Moderate	Central bank independence under pressure	State capacity & governance	64
3 · Moderate	Conspiracy movements & science denial	Information & trust	68
3 · Moderate	Foreign information manipulation	Information & trust	91
3 · Moderate	Platform power over public discourse	Information & trust	99
3 · Moderate	Censorship & surveillance	Information & trust	103
3 · Moderate	Asylum & migration system strain	State capacity & governance	115
3 · Moderate	Religious & identity nationalism	Information & trust	122
3 · Moderate	Diaspora politics & transnational repression	Information & trust	176

Erosion of rights & civic freedoms

Sensitivity and network position