Liberty and justice for some
Aug 22nd 2007
From Economist.com
Almost half of the world’s countries can be considered democracies, but only 28 qualify as “full democracies”
There is no consensus on how to measure democracy, definitions of
democracy are contested and there is an ongoing lively debate on the
subject. Although the terms “freedom” and
“democracy” are often used interchangeably, the two are not
synonymous. Democracy can be seen as a set of practices and principles
that institutionalise and thus ultimately protect freedom. Even if a
consensus on precise definitions has proved elusive, most observers
today would agree that, at a minimum, the fundamental features of a
democracy include government based on majority rule and the consent of
the governed, the existence of free and fair elections, the protection
of minorities and respect for basic human rights. Democracy presupposes
equality before the law, due process and political pluralism.
The Democracy index is based on the view that measures of democracy
that reflect the state of political freedoms and civil liberties are
not thick enough. They do not encompass sufficiently or at all some
features that determine how substantive democracy is or its quality.
Freedom is an essential component of democracy, but not sufficient. In
existing measures, the elements of political participation and
functioning of government are taken into account only in a marginal way.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy index is based on
five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the
functioning of government; political participation; and political
culture. The condition of having free and fair competitive elections,
and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, is clearly the
basic requirement of all definitions.
This index provides a snapshot of the current state of democracy
worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories. This covers
almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the
world’s 192 independent states (27 micro-states are excluded).
Several things stand out. Although almost half of the world’s
countries can be considered to be democracies, the number of
“full democracies” is relatively low (only 28). Almost
twice as many (54) are rated as “flawed democracies”. Of
the remaining 85 states, 55 are authoritarian and 30 are considered to
be “hybrid regimes”. As could be expected, the developed
OECD countries (with the notable exception of Italy) dominate among
full democracies, although there are two Latin American, two central
European and one African country, which means that the level of
development is not a binding constraint. Only one Asian country, Japan,
makes the grade.
More than half of the world’s population lives in a democracy
of some sort, although only some 13% reside in full democracies.
Despite the advances in democracy in recent decades, almost 40% of the
world’s population still lives under authoritarian rule (with a
large share of these being, of course, in China).
