The Economist Democracy Index

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).

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:

Full 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.

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.

2008 ranking

No.	Location	Index	Category
1	Sweden	9.88	Full democracy
2	Norway	9.68	Full democracy
3	Iceland	9.65	Full democracy
4	Netherlands	9.53	Full democracy
5	Denmark	9.52	Full democracy
6	Finland	9.25	Full democracy
7	New Zealand	9.19	Full democracy
8	Switzerland	9.15	Full democracy
9	Luxembourg	9.10	Full democracy
10	Australia	9.09	Full democracy
11	Canada	9.07	Full democracy
12	Ireland	9.01	Full democracy
13	Germany	8.82	Full democracy
14	Austria	8.49	Full democracy
15	Spain	8.45	Full democracy
16	Malta	8.39	Full democracy
17	Japan	8.25	Full democracy
18	United States	8.22	Full democracy
19	Czech Republic	8.19	Full democracy
20	Belgium	8.16	Full democracy
21	United Kingdom	8.15	Full democracy
22	Greece	8.13	Full democracy
23	Uruguay	8.08	Full democracy
24	France	8.07	Full democracy
25	Portugal	8.05	Full democracy
26	Mauritius	8.04	Full democracy
27	Costa Rica	8.04	Full democracy
28	South Korea	8.01	Full democracy
29	Italy	7.98	Full democracy
30	Slovenia	7.96	Full democracy
31	South Africa	7.91	Flawed democracy
32	Chile	7.89	Flawed democracy
33	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