Democracy has had yet another bad year globally, according to the latest edition of the Democracy Index from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The annual EIU’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide in 167 countries. This covers almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states (microstates are excluded).
The index is based on five categories, electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.
Based on its scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: “full democracy”, “flawed democracy”, “hybrid regime” or “authoritarian regime”.
This year, the index classified 23 countries as full democracies, 52 as flawed democracies, 35 as hybrid regimes and 57 as authoritarian regimes.
Securing the 105th slot, Pakistan, like last year, has been placed under the head of hybrid democracy, next to Turkey at the 104th rank. India, on the other hand, has been classified as a “flawed democracy” along with countries such as the United States (US), France, Belgium and Brazil.
Among the countries topping the list are Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada, followed by Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Australia and Netherlands.
“The authorities’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic led to a further erosion of civil liberties in 2020,” the report said.
