Last year, Norway was the most democratic country in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual democracy index. But global developments are bleak.

Norway, which took first place in the review also in 2020, got the best score in three of the five categories.

New Zealand followed in second place after rising from fourth place. Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark follow on the list.

Two major European countries are being criticized in report. Spain has been described as a “democracy with flaws” as a result of points deductions relating to the independence of the country’s judiciary, following a political dispute over the appointment of judges.

Britain maintains its position as a “full democracy”, but has fallen in opinion polls as a result of several scandals that have damaged confidence in the government.

45.7 percent of the world’s population lived in countries with some form of democracy last year. This is down from 49.4 percent in 2020.

Only 6.4 percent of the world’s population live in countries with “full democracies”. This is a slight decrease from 6.8 percent a year earlier.

More than a third of the world’s population, 37.1 percent, live in dictatorships. This is a small increase from 2020. The share of authoritarian states has steadily increased in recent years.

Western analysts’ expectations of change in China were crushed in the report. China is already referred to in the title of the report as the “China Challenge”. Countries without warts are more democratic while countries with warts are richer. In contrast, warts have “less freedom” and are called “authoritarian regimes” in the report.

(© NPK)