Fatal dog attacks in the US

As global democracy has declined—measured by the Economist's index that quantifies how well the world's governments are doing at the basic business of not being authoritarian—fatal dog attacks in the United States have increased, a correlation that suggests either that the erosion of democratic norms makes dogs more aggressive or that the universe has a particularly bleak sense of humor. Sixteen years of data show these trends moving in opposite directions with a coefficient of -0.925, which is strong enough to make a political scientist reconsider their definition of existential threat.

The Economist Democracy Index world average declined from about 5.55 in 2006 to roughly 5.23 by 2023, reflecting democratic backsliding in countries including Russia, Turkey, Myanmar, and the United States itself. Fatal dog attacks in the US grew from about 28 per year to over 50, driven by increased ownership of large breeds, the pandemic adoption boom (which placed many dogs with inexperienced owners), and inconsistent animal control policies. The negative correlation exists because one trend is slowly declining while the other is slowly rising across the same sixteen-year window, and two opposing monotonic trends will always produce a strong negative correlation regardless of mechanism. Democracy and dog attacks share a planet but not a causal chain.

Sixteen years of democracy declining and dog attacks increasing is one of those correlations that feels like it should mean something profound about the state of civilization, and in a cosmic sense, perhaps it does—but not in the way the data implies. The world gets less democratic, the dogs get more dangerous, and the connection between them is nothing more than two lines crossing on a chart that measures everything and explains nothing.