Like every year the British weekly Economist has compiled the ranking on the state of health of 167 countries of the world, dividing governments into full democracies, imperfect, hybrid regimes and authoritarianisms. Here is all the data
As regards the Full democracieswe are around 24, the best government in the world is confirmed as the Norway, with an overall score of 9.81/10. Also confirmed New Zeland in second place, while theIceland overtook Sweden in occupying the third step of the podium. Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Taiwan follow and complete the top ten.
How many “sincere democrats” are there. If we look at the number of world population, just 8% per cent live in these 24 countries. However, the number of authoritarianism, 59 in total. And that’s good news. But only the latter.
The case of Russia. Putin’s government recorded the largest democratic decline of any country in the world, dropping 22 places from the previous ranking to 146th place. Globally, the three worst-scoring countries are l’Afghanistan , Myanmar and North Korea. At the other extreme, Norway, New Zealand and Iceland are ranked as the most democratic countries in the world.
It’s Italy? We are within the category Imperfect Democracies and We Occupy the 34th position global, down three places from 2021, with a score of 7.69. Let’s say that according to the Economist’s indicator we are ahead from the point of view of the electoral process and pluralism (9.58), but much less adequate from the point of view of the functioning of the government (6.79).
How does the democracy index work? It’s about a weighted average based on the answers to 60 questions, each of which has two or three alternative answers allowed. Many of the responses are “expert rated”; the report does not indicate the type of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employed by the The Economist or for example independent scholars, nor the nationality of the experts. Some answers are provided by examining public opinion emerging from surveys in the respective countries. “In the case of countries for which a survey is missing, this is taken from similar countries and the expert assessment is used to clarify the obscure points.
For each of the 60 questions, the experts assign an evaluation of 1 (corresponding to the answer “yes”) or 0 (“no”), or, in some cases, even 0.5 is allowed (for non-clear answers). In addition to the expert assessment, certified national or regional polls and parameters such as voter turnout are taken into account. In the end, each macro category receives a score from zero to ten and the ranking is drawn up on the basis of the average score obtained. The index results are then used to place countries in one of 4 types of democratic regime: “full democracy” (score above 8), “imperfect democracy” (between 6 and 8), “hybrid regime” (between 4 and 6) and “authoritarian regime” (4 points or less).
From the indices of the five categories, all shown in the report, the average that provides the nation’s democracy index is then calculated. Finally this decides the classification of the country like this:
- Complete democracies (score of 8-10): are nations where basic civil and political liberties are not only respected, but also reinforced by a political culture that contributes to the prosperity of democratic principles. These nations have robust checks and balances of government, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function properly, and media that are diverse and independent. These nations have limited problems in democratic gearing;
- imperfect democracies (score from 6 to 7.99): these are countries where elections are free and basic civil liberties are respected, but may have problems (for example violation of freedom of information). Nonetheless, these nations have significant flaws in other democratic aspects, including an underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in political life, and problems in the functioning of government.
- Hybrid schemes (score from 4 to 5.99): these are countries where significant irregularities occur regularly in elections which are therefore not free. These nations commonly have governments lobbying the opposition, non-independent judiciary and widespread corruption, pressure on the media, weak rule of law and more pronounced flaws than imperfect democracies in the field of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of political participation and problems in the functioning of government.
- Authoritarian regimes (score below 4): these are countries where political pluralism is absent or extremely limited. These nations are often absolute dictatorships, they may have some conventional institutions typical of a democracy but of little relevance; violations and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if any) are by no means free, the media are often controlled by the state or by groups associated with the regime, the judiciary is not independent, censorship is omnipresent and suppresses any criticism of the government.
To know more.
Democracy Index: only 5.7% of the world‘s population lives in “complete” democracies
Democracy Index 2020, 70% of countries accuse a decline due to restrictions on freedom
How many and which states can be defined as “democracies”?