According to a survey by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), only
8% of the world’s population actually lives in a full, functioning democracy.
Meanwhile, another 37% of population lives in some type of
“flawed democracy”, while 55% of the world does not live in democracy at all,
based on the EIU’s latest Democracy Index Report.
Factors that have caused numerous declines to country democracy scores in recent years include Events such as the war in Ukraine and restrictive, long-lasting COVID-19 measures. Since the source report first began tracking scores in 2006, the global average has fallen from 5.52 to 5.29.
The Methodology in Use by EIU:
The EIU measures democracy by assessing 60 indicators across
five key categories. Each category has a rank of 0-10 based on how the
indicators fared, and the overall democracy score is an average of each of the
five categories. As an example, the U.S.’ scoring out of 10 in each of the
overall categories in 2022 is mentioned below:
|
Electoral process and
pluralism |
Functioning of government |
Political participation |
Political culture |
Civil liberties |
|
9.17 |
6.43 |
8.89 |
6.25 |
8.53 |
|
Total U.S. democracy score = 7.85 / 10 |
||||
This score ranks United States 30th overall in the world, down
four spots from last year’s ranking and defines it as a flawed democracy.
“Flawed” in this case simply means there are problems, ranging from poor
political culture to governance issues, but flawed democracies are still
considered to have free and fair elections, as well as civil liberties.
The World’s Democracies by Region
Below we map out the state of democracy across various regions around the world.
The Americas
Chile has been one of the best performers over years with
its score increasing by approximately 0.3. The country moved out of the flawed
democracy category last year, largely because of the shift towards
constitutional reform alongside President Gabriel Boric moving towards the
political center, reducing polarization.
Only three other countries in the Americas are also
considered full democracies: Costa Rica, Canada, and Uruguay, the latter of
which comes at number 1 regionally.
On the flipside, some of the world’s worst performer’s
year-over-year are located specifically in Latin America, viz.: El Salvador and
Haiti. Much of the low scores in the region are directly connected with high
crime rates and corruption in government facilities.
Africa
The only country following full democracy in Africa is the
small, island nation of Mauritius. Overall, Africa is one of the lowest scoring
regions with only five of the continent’s 54 countries ranking as some type of
democracy.
Tunisia’s score decreased significantly in 2022. President
Kais Saied dismissed parliament early in the year and took control of the
electoral council, and slowly shifted towards centralized power. And although
there were critics, many have since been arrested, downgrading them in the
EIU’s eyes from a flawed democracy to a hybrid government.
Europe
Spain and France regained their status as full democracies
in 2022, mainly improving in the civil liberties and functioning of government
categories, appreciations to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. However, both
countries face political polarization; in Spain this is largely represented in
the attitudes surrounding the Catalan separatist movement.
Some of the lowest scoring systems in the region are in
Russia and Belarus. Russia’s war in Ukraine has disrupted international law, as
well as sovereignty of another country, reducing its score by 0.96 in the
index. Belarus has repeatedly linked itself with Russia, allowing troops and
likely missiles to enter Ukraine from its borders.
Oceania and East Asia
Levels of democracy were severely affected by the COVID-19
pandemic in this region. Hong Kong only removed preventive policies like mask
mandates in early 2023. In contrast, Thailand lifted these restrictions a year
prior, providing more individual freedom, according to the report.
Malaysia has a fairly high score of 7.3 that could face
scrutiny any time, as the former Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, who was in
office during COVID-19, is currently facing corruption charges for money
laundering of COVID-19 stimulus package funds.
Central Asia and the Middle East
To end with, the Middle East and Central Asia, have no full
democracies at all. The lowest scoring country globally is Afghanistan at only
0.32.
Israel, the only democracy of any kind of the region,
actually moved down six spots in the global ranking from the preceding year.
Its lowest scoring category in 2022 was civil liberties. The country is in the
spotlight due to its judicial reforms proposed by the ruling nationalist party,
and civil response has been strong in the current year. Mass protests continue
around the country.
Infographic by: visualcapitalist
