Is Academic Freedom a Democratic Safeguard?

Imagine a society where climate scientists hesitate to publish pollution data for fear of embarrassing the government, or economists avoid scrutinising budgets for fear of reprisal. Bad policy goes unchallenged and corruption goes unchecked. This is not a far-fetched dystopia, but a trend that is already observable. When scholars are silenced, the quality of public discourse and governance suffers. 

From the United States, where proposals to give preferential university funding on the basis of ideologically-based tests sparked alarm, to parts of Europe where subtle new regulations have begun chipping away at universities’ autonomy, the message from multiple regions is clear: the freedom to teach, learn, and inquire is increasingly under pressure. 

That pressure matters beyond campus walls. Silencing academia is a tactic to remove inconvenient truths and limit public accountability. The cost is borne by citizens: fewer independent voices in public debate and less evidence-based policymaking. Over time, this erodes the fabric of democracy, which relies on the informed consent of the governed.

An early, and measurable, sign of decline

Threats to academic freedom are often an early indicator of democratic erosion, albeit one that is often overlooked. In many backsliding contexts, the Academic Freedom Index scores drop before broader governance or civil liberties indicators do. Restrictions on universities and scholars can be easier to impose early. They are often quieter and less visible than shuttering newspapers or packing courts. 

The V‑Dem Institute’s Democracy Report 2025 finds no sign that the “third wave of autocratisation” is cresting, while the Academic Freedom Index records a decade of decline in autonomy, campus expression and scholarly exchange across 179 countries. Scholars at Risk documented hundreds of attacks on higher‑education communities in a single year, across 51 countries and territories. Together, point to a global pattern - as illiberal politics increase, academic freedom declines, and with it, democratic health. 

How pressure on Academic Freedom works

A few years ago, a colleague and I reviewed restrictive measures against higher education in more than 60 countries, and this playbook continues to repeat against institutions and individuals. Loyalists are placed on governance boards and ministerial vetoes are used over hires, curricula or research priorities. Selective grants and targeted budget cuts are used to reward conformity and punish dissent. Disciplinary cases, SLAPP‑style suits, or arrests chill scholars’ research and speech. Entire fields are stigmatised or removed. Monitoring of student groups, routine police presences, conference or lecture bans constrict debate. Abusive disciplinary proceedings, malicious litigation and arrests suppress teaching, research agendas and public engagement are now well documented across jurisdictions

These tactics narrow intellectual space. While self-censorship can be hard to measure directly, evidence shows researchers avoiding “risky” questions and students self‑censoring. With this, democracies lose the disciplined disagreement that enables self‑correction. 

A right for all

One of the challenges to protecting academic freedom effectively is the oft-repeated notion that it is a limited right of academics, a professional privilege. It is not. Academic freedom is recognised as a human right because it serves the public. It safeguards access to reliable knowledge, to open debate, and to participate meaningfully in public life. 

It is also not by coincidence that threats and attacks against scholars and universities mirror those used against journalists and civil society in situations of increasing authoritarian tendencies. As Michael Ignatieff notes, authoritarians and illiberal actors target universities because independent expertise can mobilise social resistance. 

What follows for policy? 

If we would not assess the health of a country’s democracy without examining the situation of its courts or media, we should do so without examining academic freedom. Priorities include:

• Guaranteeing and enforcing rights deriving from robust international standards with clear definitions, and due‑process employment protections, with accessible remedies (judicial review, independent ombuds, whistleblower channels), to counter pressure on individual scholars.
• Insulating funding, to requrie viewpoint‑neutral, arm’s‑length funding and independent grant‑making, with transparent criteria, to blunt resource manipulation.
• Protect institutional autonomy and cross‑border exchange and mobility, place statutory limits on ministerial appointments, and barriers to security‑service interference, to resist governance control and surveillance.

Mutually reinforcing 

Academic freedom and democracy are mutually reinforcing. We need to keep the places that cultivate doubt, evidence and argument free enough to do their work and maintain clear routes that carry their outputs into public policy, courts, journalism and civil society. As the American Association of University Professors recognised in 1940, “the common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.” A society that defends the scholars’ freedom to inquire protects its own freedom to know, and we must ensure that we are not overlooking this when we measure, fund or legislate to defend democracy.