EIU – March 2, 2023

The results from the Democracy Index 2022: the good, the bad and the ugly news.

The good news is that the global score improved for the first time in seven years. Chile, France and Spain were upgraded to ‘full democracies’ from ‘flawed democracies’ – mainly due to the lifting of pandemic related restrictions on individual rights and civil liberties. Other countries that saw big improvements in their scores included Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Angola and Niger.

However, the bad news is the global score improved only marginally, from 5.28 in 2021 to 5.29 in 2022. The Democracy Index 2022 paints a global picture of stagnation t. Several countries had big regressions in their scores, such as Burkina Faso, Haiti, El Salvador, Mexico, Tunisia, Iraq and Jordan.

As for the ugly, Russia gets this accolade, recording the biggest deterioration in score of any country in the world. Obvious reasons include its unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine and its harsh crackdown and state repression against dissent at home.