The global democracy index: how did countries perform in 2024?

Radiorum · February 26

The global democracy index: how did countries perform in 2024?

Since 2006 EIU has scored 167 countries and territories on a scale of zero to ten based on five criteria: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. The countries are then grouped into four categories: full democracies (>8), flawed democracies (6-8), hybrid regimes (4-6) and authoritarian regimes (<4).

This year, nine of the top ten countries are in Europe, including at the top Norway (9.81) and in 3^rd place, Sweden (9.4)

In second place is New Zealand (9.6).

Canada (8.7), Australia (8.8) and the UK (8.3) are also categorized as full democracies.

The US (7.8) is a flawed democracy.

Authoritarian countries include Russia (2.0) and the country with the lowest ranking, Afghanistan (0.25).

Be interesting to see how the US does next year, what with Trump challenging the political independence of the civil service and implementing all those executive orders of questionable legal authority.

https://www.economist.com/interactive/democracy-index-2024?utm_campaign=r.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2/26/2025&utm_id=2064789

Radiorum · February 26

Around the world, democracy is regressing rather than progressing.

The global average dropped to a new record low of 5.17, down from a high of 5.55 in 2015. Just 6.6% of the world’s population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago. And a large share of the world’s population—currently two in five people—lives under authoritarian rule.