It is year end, and The Economist Intelligence Unit has just released its bi-annual report on the state of democracy around the world. The results, unfortunately, are not uplifting.
According to the study, a full third of the world population lives in totalitarian states – and only 12% live in what is defined as “full democracies”. The trend has been negative since the last report issued in 2008.
The study measures five criteria to arrive at a compound index:
- Electoral process and pluralism
- The functioning of government
- Political participation
- Political culture
- Civil liberties
The methodology of the study is explained in the end section of the report (from page 34).
Link to full study.
Not surprisingly, the 5 Nordic countries + Australia and New Zealand form the top seven in the ranking. At the bottom of the list are: Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Chad and North Korea.
The United States is ranked 17.
The index score determines whether a country will be characterized as:
- Full democracy
- Flawed democracy
- Hybrid regime
- Authoritarian regime
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Only 26 nations qualify as full democracies. A disappointing finding is that several European states have fallen from the full to the flawed democracy category – this applies to France, Italy, Slovenia and Greece.
I believe most users of this blog will find it useful to have a quick look at the full report. Here’s a choice quote:
Problems in the functioning of democracy in leading Western states diminish the scope for credible external democracy promotion. The US and UK are near the bottom of the “full democracy” category in our index. In the US, there has been an erosion of civil liberties related to the fight against terrorism. Problems in the functioning of government have also become more prominent. In the UK, there has also been some erosion of civil liberties, but the main feature is an exceptionally low level of political participation across all dimensions–voting turnout, membership of political parties and willingness to engage in and attitudes to political activity.
Although almost one-half of the world’s countries can be considered to be democracies, in our index the number of “full democracies” is low, at only 26 countries; 53 countries are rated as “flawed democracies”. Of the remaining 88 countries in our index, 55 are authoritarian and 33 are considered to be “hybrid regimes”. As could be expected, the developed OECD countries dominate among full democracies, although there are two Latin American countries, one east European country and one African country, which suggests that the level of development is not a binding constraint. Only two Asian countries are represented: Japan and South Korea.
Have a look at the full report!