https://datashape.org Data briefs tied to the news, deep analyses, source-cited and receipt-backed. en https://datashape.org/briefs/nigeria-electricity https://datashape.org/briefs/nigeria-electricity Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Social & Economic Rights Four Nigerians in ten. One of every eight unelectrified people on earth. https://datashape.org/briefs/dr-congo-health https://datashape.org/briefs/dr-congo-health Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Social & Economic Rights The world average is 1,317 dollars. One world-average week outspends a Congolese year. https://datashape.org/briefs/haiti-remittances https://datashape.org/briefs/haiti-remittances Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Social & Economic Rights Nearly one dollar in six. And the share keeps growing. https://datashape.org/briefs/world-hunger-rising https://datashape.org/briefs/world-hunger-rising Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Social & Economic Rights Roughly 690 million people do not get enough to eat. https://datashape.org/briefs/mali-displacement https://datashape.org/briefs/mali-displacement Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Repression & Violence About 715,000 Malians are displaced, at home and abroad. https://datashape.org/briefs/puerto-rico-exodus https://datashape.org/briefs/puerto-rico-exodus Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Social & Economic Rights From 3.72 million people to 3.20 million, in 14 years. https://datashape.org/briefs/sudan-displacement https://datashape.org/briefs/sudan-displacement Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Repression & Violence That is more than one person in four. https://datashape.org/briefs/us-immigrants-count https://datashape.org/briefs/us-immigrants-count Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Equality About one resident in six was born somewhere else. https://datashape.org/briefs/india-civic-space https://datashape.org/briefs/india-civic-space Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Civil Liberties The street is making noise. The measurements had been dropping for years. https://datashape.org/briefs/lebanon-refugees https://datashape.org/briefs/lebanon-refugees Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Equality No country carries more, for its size. https://datashape.org/briefs/refugees-three-countries https://datashape.org/briefs/refugees-three-countries Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Repression & Violence Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine: 16.8 million of the 31 million. https://datashape.org/briefs/nicaragua-elections-end https://datashape.org/briefs/nicaragua-elections-end Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Democracy & Elections The measurement ended before the announcement did. https://datashape.org/briefs/rohingya-stateless https://datashape.org/briefs/rohingya-stateless Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Equality A million people with no citizenship anywhere, in one strip of camps. https://datashape.org/briefs/yemen-displaced-decade https://datashape.org/briefs/yemen-displaced-decade Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Repression & Violence The number has climbed for a decade and has never come back down. https://datashape.org/briefs/iran-hosts-most-refugees https://datashape.org/briefs/iran-hosts-most-refugees Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Equality The number quadrupled in four years. https://datashape.org/briefs/ukraine-displacement https://datashape.org/briefs/ukraine-displacement Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Repression & Violence Ten times the number before the full invasion. https://datashape.org/briefs/us-press-freedom-fall https://datashape.org/briefs/us-press-freedom-fall Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Media & Information Rank 64 of 180 countries, and still sliding between editions. https://datashape.org/briefs/mexico-remittances https://datashape.org/briefs/mexico-remittances Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Social & Economic Rights The second-largest flow of family money on earth. https://datashape.org/briefs/palestinian-refugees-count https://datashape.org/briefs/palestinian-refugees-count Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT Brief Repression & Violence The count has grown for seven decades. https://datashape.org/analyses/media-capture-since-2014 https://datashape.org/analyses/media-capture-since-2014 Thu, 28 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Media & Information A free press is the cheapest check on power: an outlet that runs the story. After a decade of broadening, the share of captured newsrooms started rising again, and not only in the obvious places. https://datashape.org/analyses/privacy-laws-spread-as-online-arrests-rose https://datashape.org/analyses/privacy-laws-spread-as-online-arrests-rose Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Digital Rights & Privacy A privacy statute on the books reads like protection. Over a quarter century the law spread across most of the world, and being arrested for an online post became more common, not less. https://datashape.org/analyses/governments-defy-high-courts-most-on-record https://datashape.org/analyses/governments-defy-high-courts-most-on-record Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Justice & Rule of Law A constitutional court only matters if the government does what it says when it loses. That obedience held steady for 20 years, then fell to its weakest reading since the early 1990s. https://datashape.org/analyses/forced-labor-progress-reversed https://datashape.org/analyses/forced-labor-progress-reversed Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Repression & Violence Freedom from forced labor is the floor of any rights regime. The world climbed off that floor through the 2000s, peaked around 2010, and has since fallen below where it started. https://datashape.org/analyses/foreign-disinformation-became-the-norm https://datashape.org/analyses/foreign-disinformation-became-the-norm Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Digital Rights & Privacy For most of the social-media era, foreign-state disinformation was something that happened to a handful of targeted countries. The world average has now crossed into the opposite state: it is the typical condition, not the exception. https://datashape.org/analyses/economic-pillar-is-press-freedoms-floor https://datashape.org/analyses/economic-pillar-is-press-freedoms-floor Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Media & Information Press freedom is usually pictured as a fight against censorship and violence. The data on its component parts says the weakest link in most of the world is whether journalism can survive economically. https://datashape.org/analyses/election-referees-captured-not-weakened https://datashape.org/analyses/election-referees-captured-not-weakened Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Democracy & Elections A capable election authority and an independent one are not the same thing. The world built both, then quietly took back the independence while keeping the competence. https://datashape.org/analyses/rule-of-law-fell-where-it-limits-power https://datashape.org/analyses/rule-of-law-fell-where-it-limits-power Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Justice & Rule of Law Rule of law is not one thing: some of it restrains the state, some of it enforces order. Over the past decade only the restraining parts gave way. https://datashape.org/analyses/right-to-protest-fell-off-a-cliff https://datashape.org/analyses/right-to-protest-fell-off-a-cliff Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Civil Liberties Many freedoms dipped during the pandemic emergency and recovered. The right to gather and protest is the one that dropped sharply and then kept falling. https://datashape.org/analyses/statelessness-is-spreading-not-shrinking https://datashape.org/analyses/statelessness-is-spreading-not-shrinking Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Repression & Violence A stateless person has no country obliged to claim them. The global total has been roughly flat for over a decade, which hides that the problem is reaching more and more countries. https://datashape.org/analyses/income-inequality-dominates-the-development-loss https://datashape.org/analyses/income-inequality-dominates-the-development-loss Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Equality Health and schooling gaps closed. The income gap, which dwarfs both, did not. https://datashape.org/analyses/male-suicide-gap-never-moved https://datashape.org/analyses/male-suicide-gap-never-moved Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Social & Economic Rights Suicide is one of the most gendered causes of death there is. Country rates rose, fell and reshuffled over 20 years, yet the ratio between men and women hardly changed at all. https://datashape.org/analyses/going-home-stopped-being-the-ending https://datashape.org/analyses/going-home-stopped-being-the-ending Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Repression & Violence Refugee crises used to resolve: most people eventually went home. The population needing a resolution has more than doubled while the return rate collapsed. https://datashape.org/analyses/protest-energy-lost-its-democratic-tilt https://datashape.org/analyses/protest-energy-lost-its-democratic-tilt Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Democracy & Elections It is easy to assume the people in the streets lean toward democracy, and for decades they disproportionately did. In the 2020s that built-in advantage has almost disappeared. https://datashape.org/analyses/noncommunicable-deaths-a-widening-class-gap https://datashape.org/analyses/noncommunicable-deaths-a-widening-class-gap Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Social & Economic Rights Premature death from chronic disease is treatable and preventable. Rich countries cut it fast over 20 years; the poorest barely moved, so the gap between them keeps widening. https://datashape.org/analyses/the-year-the-average-society-turned-polarized https://datashape.org/analyses/the-year-the-average-society-turned-polarized Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Digital Rights & Privacy Polarization is usually told as a story about one country at a time. Measured the same way everywhere, the typical society flipped from consensus to division within a few years and has stayed flipped. https://datashape.org/analyses/bottom-half-owns-almost-nothing https://datashape.org/analyses/bottom-half-owns-almost-nothing Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Equality Income inequality at least moves year to year. Wealth ownership has been frozen near its extreme for a generation, and the bottom half is barely on the ledger. https://datashape.org/analyses/child-deaths-moved-into-the-first-month https://datashape.org/analyses/child-deaths-moved-into-the-first-month Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Social & Economic Rights The collapse in child mortality is real. But the deaths that medicine reaches last are the earliest: the first month of life is becoming the place where child death concentrates. https://datashape.org/analyses/universal-vote-unfinished-voice https://datashape.org/analyses/universal-vote-unfinished-voice Tue, 19 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Civil Liberties The 20th century finished one democratic project: almost everyone, everywhere, has the legal right to vote. The other project, freedom to speak, was never finished and is now going backward. https://datashape.org/analyses/executive-restraint-collapse https://datashape.org/analyses/executive-restraint-collapse Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Democracy & Elections Everything looks normal until the final years. Then elections and courts fall together, and it is over. https://datashape.org/analyses/rule-of-law-falling-three-quarters https://datashape.org/analyses/rule-of-law-falling-three-quarters Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Justice & Rule of Law Rules only protect people when the powerful are bound by them too. When that weakens in 3 of every 4 countries at once, it is not a local story. https://datashape.org/analyses/most-of-the-world-scores-below-the-halfway-mark https://datashape.org/analyses/most-of-the-world-scores-below-the-halfway-mark Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Corruption More than 2 in 3 countries score below the halfway mark on corruption. That share has not moved in 14 years. https://datashape.org/analyses/world-population-under-autocracy https://datashape.org/analyses/world-population-under-autocracy Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Democracy & Elections Most of humanity now lives where elections cannot remove the rulers. That share has climbed back to Cold War levels. https://datashape.org/analyses/internet-shutdowns-most-on-record https://datashape.org/analyses/internet-shutdowns-most-on-record Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Digital Rights & Privacy A government can silence a protest, an election, or a region without arresting anyone: it just turns the network off. The count of countries that pull that switch is a direct measure of how routine digital blackouts have become. https://datashape.org/analyses/life-expectancy-gap-33-years https://datashape.org/analyses/life-expectancy-gap-33-years Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Social & Economic Rights Birthplace shapes how long you live more than almost any individual choice. A 33-year gap still separates the best and worst places to be born, and it has stopped closing. https://datashape.org/analyses/journalists-physically-unsafe-in-70-countries https://datashape.org/analyses/journalists-physically-unsafe-in-70-countries Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Media & Information A reporter who can be jailed, beaten, or killed for filing a story cannot do the job at all. Physical safety is the floor beneath every other press freedom: without it, the rest is theory. https://datashape.org/analyses/civic-space-population-exposure https://datashape.org/analyses/civic-space-population-exposure Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Civil Liberties In 2018, 46% of humanity lived where protest and dissent are crushed. By 2025 it was 73%, a shift that took 7 years. https://datashape.org/analyses/women-empowerment-25-below-half https://datashape.org/analyses/women-empowerment-25-below-half Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Equality The gains over 50 years were steep. The last 15 years cut the number only from 31 to 25. https://datashape.org/analyses/extreme-poverty-still-over-half https://datashape.org/analyses/extreme-poverty-still-over-half Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Social & Economic Rights 40 years of global progress cut the extreme-poverty rate from 47% to 10%. 11 countries are still on the wrong side of 50%. https://datashape.org/analyses/election-credibility-lowest-since-2002 https://datashape.org/analyses/election-credibility-lowest-since-2002 Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Democracy & Elections An election is only as good as the count behind it. Around the world in 2025, more elections look like staged ones than at any point since 2002. https://datashape.org/analyses/journalists-harassed-most-in-32-years https://datashape.org/analyses/journalists-harassed-most-in-32-years Sat, 16 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT Analysis Media & Information When reporters are followed, threatened, detained, or attacked for doing their jobs, the public loses the people who would otherwise tell it what those in power are doing. The number of countries where this is routine has climbed for 13 years without a pause.