The Economist Democracy Index

The index is based on 60 indicators grouped into five categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties, and political culture.

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).

The following table lists the average of each country scored by geographic region, as defined by the Economist Democracy Index.

The regions are assigned by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and may differ from conventional classifications (for example, Turkey is grouped in Western Europe).

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.

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.

[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.

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 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.

[16] 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.