Democracy Index
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Democracy Index
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Jump to: navigation, search
The Economist Democracy index map, with lighter colours representing more democratic countries. Countries with DI below 2 (clearly authoritarian) are black.The Economist has in a study examined the state of democracy in 167 countries and attempted to quantify this with an Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy which focused on five general categories; electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. According to Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2008 Sweden scored a total of 9.88 on a scale from zero to ten, which was the highest result, while North Korea scored the lowest with 0.86. [1] The countries are categorized into “Full Democracies”, “Flawed Democracies”, “Hybrid Regimes” (all considered democracies), and “Authoritarian Regimes” (considered dictatorial).
Contents [hide]
1 Methodology
2 Democracy index by regime type
3 November 2008 ranking
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
[edit] Methodology
As described in the report, the democracy index is a kind of weighted average based on the answers of 60 questions, each one with either two or three permitted alternative answers. Most answers are “experts’ assessments”; the report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of The Economist or e.g. independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts. Some answers are provided by public opinion surveys from the respective countries. “In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.”
The questions are distributed into the five categories enumerated supra. Each answer is translated to a mark, either 0 or 1, or for the three answer alternative questions, 0.5. With the exceptions infra, seemingly, the sums are added within each category, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures. In a few cases, an answer yielding zero for one question voids another question; e.g., if the elections for national legislation and head of government are not considered free (question 1), then the next question, “Are elections… fair?” is not considered, but automatically marked zero. Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely
“Whether national elections are free and fair”;
“The security of voters”;
“The influence of foreign powers on government”;
“The capability of the civil servants to implement policies”.
The five category indices, which all are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the democracy index for a given country. Finally, the democracy index, rounded to one decimal, decides the classification of the country, as quoted:
Functioning democracies—scores of 8-10.
Flawed democracies—scores of 6 to 7.9.
Hybrid regimes—scores of 4 to 5.9.
Authoritarian regimes—scores below 4.
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. E.g., in this comparison, a higher emphasis has been put on the public opinion and attitudes, as measured by public surveys, but on the other hand, economic living standard has not been weighted as one criterion of democracy (as seemingly some other investigators have done).
There is no indication that this report has been presented or is planned to be presented in any academic context, or has been checked by or will be checked by a peer review.
[edit] Democracy index by regime type
The following table constitutes the number of countries in each category according to 2008 survey.
Regime Type Countries % of countries % of world population
Full democracies 30 18.0 14.4
Flawed democracies 50 29.9 35.5
Hybrid regimes 36 21.6 15.2
Authoritarian regimes 51 30.5 34.9
World population refers to the total population of the 167 countries that are covered. Since this survey excludes only the micro states, this is nearly equal to the entire actual estimated world population in 2008.
[edit] November 2008 ranking
No. Location Index Category
1 Sweden 9.88 Functioning democracy
2 Norway 9.68 Functioning democracy
3 Iceland 9.65 Functioning democracy
4 Netherlands 9.53 Functioning democracy
5 Denmark 9.52 Functioning democracy
6 Finland 9.25 Functioning democracy
7 New Zealand 9.19 Functioning democracy
8 Switzerland 9.15 Functioning democracy
9 Luxembourg 9.10 Functioning democracy
10 Australia 9.09 Functioning democracy
11 Canada 9.07 Functioning democracy
12 Ireland 9.01 Functioning democracy
13 Germany 8.82 Functioning democracy
14 Austria 8.49 Functioning democracy
15 Spain 8.45 Functioning democracy
16 Malta 8.39 Functioning democracy
17 Japan 8.25 Functioning democracy
18 United States 8.22 Functioning democracy
19 Czech Republic 8.19 Functioning democracy
20 Belgium 8.16 Functioning democracy
21 United Kingdom 8.15 Functioning democracy
22 Greece 8.13 Functioning democracy
23 Uruguay 8.08 Functioning democracy
24 France 8.07 Functioning democracy
25 Portugal 8.05 Functioning democracy
26 Mauritius 8.04 Functioning democracy
27 Costa Rica 8.04 Functioning democracy
28 South Korea 8.01 Functioning democracy
29 Italy 7.98 Functioning democracy
30 Slovenia 7.96 Functioning democracy
31 South Africa 7.91 Flawed democracy
32 Chile 7.89 Flawed democracy
33 Republic of China (Taiwan) 7.82 Flawed democracy
34 Cape Verde 7.81 Flawed democracy
35 India 7.80 Flawed democracy
36 Cyprus 7.70 Flawed democracy
37 Estonia 7.68 Flawed democracy
38 Israel 7.48 Flawed democracy
39 Botswana 7.47 Flawed democracy
40 Hungary 7.44 Flawed democracy
41 Brazil 7.38 Flawed democracy
42 Lithuania 7.36 Flawed democracy
43 Panama 7.35 Flawed democracy
44 Slovakia 7.33 Flawed democracy
45 Poland 7.30 Flawed democracy
46 Latvia 7.23 Flawed democracy
47 Timor-Leste 7.22 Flawed democracy
48 Trinidad and Tobago 7.21 Flawed democracy
49 Jamaica 7.21 Flawed democracy
50 Romania 7.06 Flawed democracy
51 Croatia 7.04 Flawed democracy
52 Bulgaria 7.02 Flawed democracy
53 Ukraine 6.94 Flawed democracy
54 Thailand 6.81 Flawed democracy
55 Mexico 6.78 Flawed democracy
56 Argentina 6.63 Flawed democracy
57 Sri Lanka 6.61 Flawed democracy
58 Mongolia 6.60 Flawed democracy
59 Suriname 6.58 Flawed democracy
60 Colombia 6.54 Flawed democracy
61 Papua New Guinea 6.54 Flawed democracy
62 Moldova 6.50 Flawed democracy
63 Serbia 6.49 Flawed democracy
64 Namibia 6.48 Flawed democracy
65 Montenegro 6.43 Flawed democracy
66 Paraguay 6.40 Flawed democracy
67 El Salvador 6.40 Flawed democracy
68 Malaysia 6.36 Flawed democracy
69 Indonesia 6.34 Flawed democracy
70 Peru 6.31 Flawed democracy
71 Lesotho 6.29 Flawed democracy
72 Republic of Macedonia 6.21 Flawed democracy
73 Dominican Republic 6.20 Flawed democracy
74 Honduras 6.18 Flawed democracy
75 Bolivia 6.15 Flawed democracy
76 Guyana 6.12 Flawed democracy
77 Philippines 6.12 Flawed democracy
78 Nicaragua 6.07 Flawed democracy
79 Guatemala 6.07 Flawed democracy
80 Benin 6.06 Flawed democracy
81 Albania 5.91 Hybrid regime
82 Singapore 5.89 Hybrid regime
83 Mali 5.87 Hybrid regime
84 Hong Kong 5.85 Hybrid regime
85 Palestinian Authority 5.83 Hybrid regime
86 Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.70 Hybrid regime
87 Turkey 5.69 Hybrid regime
88 Ecuador 5.64 Hybrid regime
89 Lebanon 5.62 Hybrid regime
90 Madagascar 5.57 Hybrid regime
91 Bangladesh 5.52 Hybrid regime
92 Mozambique 5.49 Hybrid regime
93 Senegal 5.37 Hybrid regime
94 Ghana 5.35 Hybrid regime
95 Venezuela 5.34 Hybrid regime
96 Tanzania 5.28 Hybrid regime
97 Zambia 5.25 Hybrid regime
98 Liberia 5.25 Hybrid regime
99 Malawi 5.13 Hybrid regime
100 Fiji 5.11 Hybrid regime
101 Uganda 5.03 Hybrid regime
102 Cambodia 4.87 Hybrid regime
103 Kenya 4.79 Hybrid regime
104 Georgia 4.62 Hybrid regime
105 Ethiopia 4.52 Hybrid regime
106 Burundi 4.51 Hybrid regime
107 Russia 4.48 Hybrid regime
108 Pakistan 4.46 Hybrid regime
109 Bhutan 4.30 Hybrid regime
110 Haiti 4.19 Hybrid regime
111 Gambia 4.19 Hybrid regime
112 Sierra Leone 4.11 Hybrid regime
113 Armenia 4.09 Hybrid regime
114 Kyrgyzstan 4.05 Hybrid regime
115 Nepal 4.05 Hybrid regime
116 Iraq 4.00 Hybrid regime
117 Jordan 3.93 Authoritarian regimes
118 Mauritania 3.91 Authoritarian regimes
119 Egypt 3.89 Authoritarian regimes
120 Morocco 3.88 Authoritarian regimes
121 Rwanda 3.71 Authoritarian regimes
122 Burkina Faso 3.60 Authoritarian regimes
123 Comoros 3.58 Authoritarian regimes
124 Nigeria 3.53 Authoritarian regimes
125 Cuba 3.52 Authoritarian regimes
126 Cameroon 3.46 Authoritarian regimes
127 Kazakhstan 3.45 Authoritarian regimes
128 Niger 3.41 Authoritarian regimes
129 Kuwait 3.39 Authoritarian regimes
130 Bahrain 3.38 Authoritarian regimes
131 Angola 3.35 Authoritarian regimes
132 Belarus 3.34 Authoritarian regimes
133 Algeria 3.32 Authoritarian regimes
134 Côte d’Ivoire 3.27 Authoritarian regimes
135 Azerbaijan 3.19 Authoritarian regimes
136 China 3.04 Authoritarian regimes
137 Swaziland 3.04 Authoritarian regimes
138 Afghanistan 3.02 Authoritarian regimes
139 Gabon 3.00 Authoritarian regimes
140 Oman 2.98 Authoritarian regimes
141 Tunisia 2.96 Authoritarian regimes
142 Yemen 2.95 Authoritarian regimes
143 Congo 2.94 Authoritarian regimes
144 Qatar 2.92 Authoritarian regimes
145 Iran 2.83 Authoritarian regimes
146 Sudan 2.81 Authoritarian regimes
147 United Arab Emirates 2.60 Authoritarian regimes
148 Zimbabwe 2.53 Authoritarian regimes
149 Vietnam 2.53 Authoritarian regimes
150 Tajikistan 2.45 Authoritarian regimes
151 Togo 2.43 Authoritarian regimes
152 Djibouti 2.37 Authoritarian regimes
153 Eritrea 2.31 Authoritarian regimes
154 Republic of the Congo 2.28 Authoritarian regimes
155 Equatorial Guinea 2.19 Authoritarian regimes
156 Syria 2.18 Authoritarian regimes
157 Laos 2.10 Authoritarian regimes
158 Guinea 2.09 Authoritarian regimes
159 Libya 2.00 Authoritarian regimes
160 Guinea-Bissau 1.99 Authoritarian regimes
161 Saudi Arabia 1.90 Authoritarian regimes
162 Central African Republic 1.86 Authoritarian regimes
163 Myanmar 1.77 Authoritarian regimes
164 Uzbekistan 1.74 Authoritarian regimes
165 Turkmenistan 1.72 Authoritarian regimes
166 Chad 1.52 Authoritarian regimes
167 North Korea 0.86 Authoritarian regimes
[edit] See also
Freedom House
Gini coefficient
Gender-related Development Index
Gender Empowerment Measure
Living Planet Index
Gross national happiness
Happy Planet Index
Physical quality-of-life index
Human development (humanity)
Human Development Index
References
^ http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20081021185552/graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf
External links
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy 2006
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy 2008
