2020 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: Economist Intelligence Unit

World Democracy Report

For: Preliminary & Mains

Topics covered:

Key findings of the World Democracy Report
About Economist Intelligence Unit

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India slipped 10 places to 51st position in the 2019 Democracy Index’s global ranking, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit. This index provides an overall view of the status of democracy among 167 countries.

Global democracy Index

The global democracy index helps business leaders to empower them to work with confidence and to prepare for more opportunities.

The index is based on five categories:

Electoral process and pluralism
The functioning of government
Political participation
Political culture
Civil liberties.

Based on their total score, the countries are classified as one of four types of regime:

Full democracy (scores greater than 8)
Flawed democracy (scores greater than 6 and less than or equal to 8)
Hybrid regime (scores greater than 4 and less than or equal to 6)
Authoritarian regime (scores less than or equal to 4)

Key Findings

Norway was followed by Iceland and Sweden at second and third positions respectively.
Other countries in the top 10 include New Zealand at the fourth place, Finland (5th), Ireland (6th), Denmark (7th), Canada (8th), Australia (9th) and Switzerland (10th).
India was pushed to 51st rank. India’s overall score fell from 7.23 in 2018 to 6.90 in the Index.
India was included in the “flawed democracy” category.
Pakistan is on 108th rank with a score of 4.25.
China’s score fell to 2.26 in the 2019 index, and the country is now ranked 153rd, close to the bottom of the global rankings.
Brazil was ranked 52nd with a score of 6.86.
Russia stood at 134th with a score of 3.11.
Sri Lanka was at 69th place with a score of 6.27.
Bangladesh is at 80th with a score of 5.88.
North Korea was at the bottom of the global ranking at 167th place.

On India

The primary cause of democratic regression was an erosion of civil liberties in the country.
According to the report, the slippage of India’s ranking was mainly due to the protests of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and abrogation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is a British business within the Economist Group providing forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis, such as monthly country reports, five-year country economic forecasts, country risk service reports, and industry reports.

Source: ET