Democracy sustainability barometer 2026

For the fourth consecutive year, we present the Democracy Sustainability Barometer, aiming to systematically measure, evaluate, and compare the attitudes of Lithuanian residents toward democracy and their resilience to propaganda from authoritarian states in the East.

As in previous surveys, we calculate two main indices of the Democracy Sustainability Barometer based on data from a representative survey. The first one, the Democracy Sustainability Index, measures the public’s support for liberal democratic institutions, willingness to defend democracy through protests, satisfaction with democratic functioning (both procedures and governmental responsiveness), and trust in state institutions. The second one, the Resilience to Eastern Propaganda Index, examines perceptions of the threat posed by Russia and the extent to which people agree with the economic and political narratives of authoritarian regimes in Russia and China.

The year 2025 proved to be a challenging period for democracy and international security. The actions of Donald Trump’s administration have raised questions about the United States’ commitment to democracy and to the Western-led international security order. Democracy continues to erode worldwide. According to the latest V-Dem report (2025), for the first time in two decades, the number of autocracies (91) exceeds that of democracies (88) globally. Autocratic governance has taken root within the European Union, and not only in Hungary; following the 2024 elections, Slovakia has also begun to move in a similar direction.

Although political freedoms and civil rights remain strong in Lithuania, the country has experienced significant political instability in recent years. In 2025, Lithuania saw a change of prime ministers and governments, and for the first time since 2008, the government failed to complete its full parliamentary term. There were concerns regarding the foreign policy rhetoric of some of the ruling parties. In combination, these factors underscore the continued importance of studying Lithuanian society’s resilience to Eastern propaganda and its support for democratic values. Moreover, as the survey shows, there are troubling signs, including persistent – and in some cases, growing – distrust of political institutions, as well as a slight decline in the perceived threat posed by Russia.

As in previous years, the report is divided into three parts. The first part analyses the democratic attitudes of the Lithuanian population and the components of the Democracy Sustainability Index. The second part focuses on foreign policy attitudes and resilience to Eastern propaganda; this part presents the Index of Resilience to Eastern Propaganda. This year, we have added new questions to the core index, including, for example, how residents perceive the Belarus threat. The report also addresses other key security issues: attitudes toward the deployment of German brigades in Lithuania, support for increased defence spending, and perceptions of the reliability of the United States and NATO as security partners, among other issues.

We compare the intermediate indices across several independent variables, including age, education, place of residence, and attitudes toward the Soviet era. Responses to the question relating to the latter variable are distributed as follows: 51.8% disagree that life was better during the Soviet era, 25.2% responded with “neither agree nor disagree,” 11.7% agree, and approximately 11.2% are unsure. While the divide in attitudes toward the Soviet era may appear less relevant in today’s Lithuania, previous Democracy Sustainability Barometer surveys indicate that it remains closely linked to significant differences in attitudes toward democracy and resilience to propaganda. Accordingly, this variable serves as an effective criterion for comparing the influence of other factors, such as education.

The study uses data from a representative survey of the Lithuanian population conducted by Spinter Research on behalf of the Geopolitics and Security Studies Center by computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) between 20 November and 9 December 2025. 1015 respondents aged between 18 and 75 were interviewed. The statistical overlap between the components of the indices presented in the study was tested by means of factor analysis: all the intermediate index indicators fall into one dimension. The t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to assess the differences between mean index scores across sociodemographic groups.

The publication can be found in English HERE.