As described in the report, the Democracy Index produces a weighted average based on the answers to 60 questions, or indicators, each one with either two or three permitted answers. Most answers are experts' assessments. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.[2]
Each answer is converted to a score, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer questions, 0, 0.5 or 1. With the exceptions mentioned below, within each category, the scores are added, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures. In a few cases, an answer yielding zero for one question voids another question; e.g., if the elections for the national legislature and head of government are not considered free (question 1), then the next question, "Are elections... fair?", is not considered, but automatically scored zero. Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely:
"The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".
The five category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the overall score for a given country. Finally, the score, rounded to two decimals, decides the regime-type classification of the country.
The report discusses other indices of democracy, as defined, e.g., by Freedom House, and argues for some of the choices made by the team from the Economist Intelligence Unit. In this comparison, a higher emphasis is placed on the public opinion and attitudes, as measured by surveys, but on the other hand, economic living-standards are not weighted as one criterion of democracy (as seemingly some other investigators have done).[3][4]
The report is widely cited in the international press as well as in peer-reviewed academic journals.[5]
Definitions
Full democracies are countries where civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms are not only respected but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and diverse and independent media. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.[6]
Flawed democracies are countries where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These countries can have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.[6]
Hybrid regimes are countries with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies. These countries commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.[6]
Authoritarian regimes are countries where political pluralism is nonexistent or severely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meagre significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair or free (including sham elections), the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and censorship and suppression of governmental criticism are commonplace.[6]
By regime type
The following table indicates the number of nations and the percentage of world population for each type of regime. Some microstates are not considered in the calculation.
The following table lists the number of countries in each of the four democracy classifications.
Year 2023
Rank
Region
Countries
Authoritarian
Hybrid regime
Flawed democracy
Full democracy
Average score
1
Western Europe
21
0
1
5
15
8.37
2
North America
2
0
0
1
1
8.27
3
Latin America and the Caribbean
24
4
7
11
2
5.68
4
Asia and Australasia
28
8
5
10
5
5.41
5
Central and Eastern Europe
28
8
4
16
0
5.37
6
Sub-Saharan Africa
44
22
15
6
1
4.04
7
Middle East and North Africa
20
17
2
1
0
3.23
World
167
59
34
50
25
5.23
List by country
The following table shows each nation's score over the years. The regions are assigned by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and may differ from conventional classifications (for example, Turkey is grouped in Western Europe).
In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy;[9] its score, which had been declining for some years, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016. The report stated that this was caused by myriad factors dating back to at least the late 1960s which have eroded Americans' trust in governmental institutions.[10][11] Nigeria was also upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime.
The 2017 Democracy Index registered, at the time, the worst year for global democracy since 2010–11. Asia was the region with the largest decline since 2016. Venezuela was downgraded from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime. In China, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), further entrenched his power by writing his contribution to the CCP's ideology, dubbed Xi Jinping Thought, into the party's constitution. Moldova was downgraded from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime as a result of problematic elections. By contrast, Armenia was re-upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime as a result of constitutional changes that shifted power from the presidency to parliament.[12] In 2017, the Gambia was upgraded again from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime after Yahya Jammeh, who was president from 1996 to 2017, was defeated by Adama Barrow, an opposition candidate in the 2016 presidential elections.
In 2019, France, Portugal and Chile were upgraded from flawed democracies to full democracies. In fact, this was not a new experience for the former two, which suffered from the eurozone crisis many years before. By contrast, Malta was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy. Thailand and Albania were upgraded from hybrid regimes to flawed democracies.[13] Algeria was upgraded again from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime.
In 2020, Taiwan was upgraded from flawed democracy to full democracy following reforms in the judiciary,[14] and soared to 11th position from its previous position at 33. Japan and South Korea were also upgraded again to a full democracy, while France and Portugal were once again relegated to flawed democracies. Hong Kong was downgraded from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime. Algeria was downgraded again from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime. The Economist Intelligence Unit noted that democracy "was dealt a major blow in 2020".[15] Almost 70% of countries covered by the Democracy Index recorded a decline in their overall score, as most of them imposed lockdowns and other restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to some arresting journalists and citizens accused of spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The global average score fell to its lowest level since the index began in 2006.
In 2021, both the global and regional average scores continued downward trends, with the exception of the Central and Eastern Europe region. Spain and Chile were downgraded from full democracies to flawed democracies, while Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and Tunisia were downgraded from flawed democracies to hybrid regimes. Haiti, Lebanon, and Kyrgyzstan were downgraded from hybrid regimes to authoritarian regimes. In addition, Moldova, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were upgraded from hybrid regimes to flawed democracies, whereas Mauritania was upgraded from authoritarian to hybrid regime. For the first time, two countries displaced North Korea as the lowest-ranked states in the Democracy Index – in Myanmar, the elected government was overthrown in a military coup, and protests were suppressed by the junta, which ultimately resulted in its score going down by 2.02 points; Afghanistan, as a result of the 2021 Taliban offensive and subsequent takeover of government, registered the lowest score of any state ever recorded on the Democracy Index at 0.32.
In 2022, the global average score stagnated, with the lifting of COVID-related restrictions being largely canceled out by other negative developments globally.
In 2023, the global average score deteriorated further, with most declines occurring in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, with the former becoming more entrenched and the latter struggling to democratize. The threshold for each color has also been changed from greater than the integer to greater than or equal to.[16]
Criticism
Investment analyst Peter Tasker has criticised the Democracy Index for lacking transparency and accountability beyond the numbers. To generate the index, the Economist Intelligence Unit has a scoring system in which various experts are asked to answer 60 questions and assign each reply a number, with the weighted average deciding the ranking. However, the final report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts.[17]
^"Democracy Index 2006"(PDF). The World in 2007. 15 November 2006. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 26 January 2017.
^Manaev, Oleg; Manayeva, Natalie; Dzmitry, Yuran (1 December 2011). "More State than Nation: Lukashenko's Belarus". Journal of International Affairs. 65 (1): 93–113. Archived from the original on 21 December 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2017.
