Context
According to The Economist Intelligence Unit, India has ranked 46th position in the 2021 Democracy Index’s global ranking.
Key-highlights
- According to the Democracy Index’s global ranking, Norway topped the Democracy Index With the highest score of 9.75 while Afghanistan displaced North Korea as the least democratic country with an overall score of 0.32.
- Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland are the top five nations while the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan are the bottom five nations.
- India ranked 46 on the global index in the flawed democracy category with an overall score of 6.91.
- India's neighbouring countries China (148), Myanmar (166), and Afghanistan (167) are placed in the Authoritarian category, Bangladesh (75), Bhutan (81), Nepal (101), Pakistan (104) in Hybrid Regime, while Sri Lanka (67) is placed in the Flawed Democracy category.
- Our neighbour Pakistan has been placed further below in the hybrid regime with a rank of 104.
- The global democracy score fell from 5.37 to a new low of 5.28 out of ten.
- The only equivalent drop since 2006 was in 2010 after the global financial crisis.
- Asia remains the fourth-ranked region in the Democracy Index 2021, after North America, Western Europe and Latin America.
About the Report
- The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released its report on the state of democracy in 2021 across 165 independent countries and two territories.
- The report is based on five findings –
- Electoral process and pluralism
- Functioning of the government
- Political participation
- Political culture
- Civil liberties
- The report has been further bifurcated into a full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarian.
- Since the start of the index in 2006, Latin America recorded the biggest setback in 2021 of any region with the greatest number of countries to have recorded double-digit downgrades.
