Democracy Report 2022: Democracies on the slide

What is the News?

V-Dem Institute at the Sweden’s University of Gothenburg has released the ‘Democracy Report 2022: Autocratisation Changing Nature?’. 

What is the Democracy Report 2022?

Released by: Varieties of Democracy(V-Dem) Institute at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg

Purpose: The report measures hundreds of different attributes of democracy. It enables new ways to study the nature, causes and consequences of democracy embracing its multiple meanings.

Parameters: The report is based on the score in the Liberal Democracy Index(LDI). LDI captures both liberal and electoral aspects of democracy, based on the 71 indicators included in the Liberal Component Index (LCI) and the Electoral Democracy Index (EDI). 

– The EDI reflects a relatively ambitious idea of electoral democracy where a number of institutional features guarantee free and fair elections such as freedom of association and freedom of expression. 

– The LCI goes even further and captures the limits placed on governments in terms of two key aspects: The protection of individual liberties, and the checks and balances between institutions.

In addition, the LDI also uses Egalitarian Component Index (to what extent different social groups are equal), Participatory Component Index (health of  citizen groups, civil society organisations) and Deliberative Component Index (whether political decisions are taken through public reasoning.

Categorization: Based on the score in the LDI, the report classifies countries into four regime types: Liberal Democracy, Electoral Democracy, Electoral Autocracy and Closed Autocracy.

What are the key findings of the report?

India: India has been categorised as an autocracy (‘electoral autocracy’) rather than a democracy. It is ranked 93rd on the index out of 179 countries.

India has figured in the top 10 autocratising countries of the world along with El Salvador, Turkey and Hungary.

In South Asia, India is ranked below Sri Lanka (88), Nepal (71), Bhutan (65) and above Pakistan (117).

Globally: Sweden has topped the LDI index. Other Scandinavian countries such as Denmark and Norway along with Costa Rica and New Zealand make up the top five in liberal democracy rankings.

The level of democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2021 is down to 1989 levels. The last 30 years of democratic advances are now eradicated.

Dictatorships are on the rise and harbour 70% of the world population – 5.4 billion people. 

Electoral autocracy remains the most common regime type and harbours 44% of the world’s population or 3.4 billion people.

Autocratisation is spreading rapidly with a record of 33 countries autocratising.

What does the report say on the changing nature of autocratisation?

One of the biggest drivers of autocratisation is “toxic polarisation” — defined as a phenomenon that erodes respect of counter-arguments and associated aspects of the deliberative component of democracy.

The report identified Misinformation, Repression of civil society and Censorship of media were the favoured tools of autocratic regimes. 

Significantly, the report also found that decisive autonomy for the electoral management body (EMB) deteriorated in 25 countries.

Source: This post is based on the article “Democracies on the slide” published in The Hindu on 7th Mar 2022.