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Global Democracy Index 2021

  • 14 Feb 2022

Global Democracy Index 2021 was released by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU).

The annual survey, rates the state of democracy across 167 countries on the basis of five measures:

  • Electoral Process and Pluralism
  • Functioning of Government
  • Political Participation
  • Democratic Political Culture
  • Civil Liberties

Major Findings

  • Global democracy continued its precipitous decline in 2021.
  • More than a third of the world’s population lives under authoritarian rule while just 6.4% enjoy a full democracy.

The Index and India

  • India has ranked 46th position in the 2021 Democracy Index’s global ranking. In 2020, India was ranked at 53rd position.
  • India has been categorized as a ‘Flawed Democracy’ out of the four categories by the EIU – Authoritarian Regimes/Hybrid Regimes/Flawed Democracies/ Full Democracies.
  • India has an overall score of 6.91. It has the lowest score of 5 on political culture and the highest score of 8.67 on electoral process and pluralism. It scores 6.18 on civil liberties, 7.22 on political participation, and 7.50 on functioning of government.

Countries at Top and Bottom in the Index

  • Topping the list were Norway (1), New Zealand (2) and Finland (3).
  • Afghanistan (167) and Myanmar (166) took the bottom two spots, just below North Korea (165).

Rank of Some Other Countries

  • USA- 26 (Flawed Democracy)
  • China- 148 (Authoritarian Regime)
  • Pakistan- 104 (Hybrid Regime)
  • Bangladesh-75 (Hybrid Regime)