Democracy-Dictatorship Index by Country 2024

Though it began as a biannual report in 2006, the Democracy Index from The Economic Intelligence Unit, part of the Economist Group, now appears annually. It reports on the state of democracy in 165 countries. The index uses 60 parameters to create a score for each nation that correlates to that country's level of democracy.

What the Democracy-Dictatorship Index Means

Scores for each country examined have a possible range from 0.00 to 10.00. The higher the score, the more likely that country has elements of a democratic government instead of an authoritarian one.

Countries fall into one of four categories based on their scores. These groups include full democracies for countries with scores of 8.01 or higher, flawed democracies for nations with scores between 6.01 and 8.00, hybrid regimes with scores between 4.01 and 6.00, and authoritarian regimes with any score below 4.00.

What Does the EIU Use to Calculate the Democracy Index?

To calculate each nation's Democracy Index, the EIU uses 60 separate pieces of information, which fall into five main categories. These categories are political culture, political participation, the electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, and the functioning of government.

Each metric within a category has a value between 0.00 and 10.00. These values average together to find the category score. The total Democracy Index score comes from averaging the five subscores from each of the categories.

Final Democracy Index scores reflect the level of democracy citizens have within that nation. Higher scores correlate to more democratic government operations in which citizens have more say in how the government operates.

Countries with the Highest Democracy-Dictatorship Indices

Full democracy countries have the highest scores globally. The most recent data from 2022 shows 24 countries operated with full democracies, indicated by scores greater than 8.00 on the Democracy Index. Norway topped the list with a total score of 9.81. Its high ranking comes from its perfect scores in three of the five categories – electoral process and pluralism, political culture, and political participation. This nation also placed first in 2021.

Nations at the Bottom of the Democracy-Dictatorship Index

Globally, 36.9% of the population lives in a government that falls into the bottom tier of the Democracy Index, an authoritarian regime. This group includes 59 countries. Among these countries, Afghanistan had the lowest score, 0.32, and Myanmar came in second-to-last with a score of 0.74. These two nations finished in the same places in 2021, as well, indicating no major changes in their governments since 2021.