The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide in 165 independent states. It is based on five categories — electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Based on the scores categorically and cumulative, each country is classified into four categories — Full Democracies, Flawed Democracies, Hybrid Regimes and Authoritarian Regimes.
These were the top insights from this year’s report:
— Only 8.4% of the population reside in “Full Democracies’.
— The average global score reached to the lowest (5.44) since its inception in 2006. This was largely due to government-imposed restrictions in response to the pandemic.
— Taiwan was the star performer this year. The country rose by score and rank, and upgraded to a ‘full democracy’.
— Only 3 countries in Western Europe improved their performance (since 2019) while 18 underperformed. France and Portugal moved to ‘flawed democracy’. The score fell sharpest for these 2 categories — government functioning and civil liberties.
— Regional scores have taken a hit in the Middle East and Africa with authoritarian regimes taking advantage of the health crisis to persecute political opponents and rebels.
— In India, democratic norms have been under pressure since 2015. India’s score fell from 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020 and it slipped from 27 to 53 rank in the mentioned period. By contrast, the scores of its neighbours have improved marginally.
