India slipped two places to 53rd position in the 2020 Democracy Index’s global ranking, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit.
The Economist Intelligence Unit is the research and analysis division of 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.
The Economist Intelligence Unit provides country, industry, and risk analyses based on the work, research, and insights of a worldwide network of economic, political, and business experts. Additionally, the EIU has a system of country specialists that provide country-specific insight and analysis.
The Democracy Index is compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research division of the Economist Group, a UK-based private company which publishes the weekly newspaper The Economist.
It was started in 2006 by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The index is self-described as intending to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 164 are UN member states.
Out of 167 countries, the Democracy Index classifies 23 countries as full democracies, 52 as flawed democracies, 35 as hybrid regimes, and 57 as authoritarian regimes.
The index is based on five categories (i) Civil liberties, (ii) Electoral process and pluralism; (iii) Functioning of government; (iv) Political participation; (v) Political culture.
Each country will be provided with a score of 0 to 10. These scores are decided based on the 60 indicators within the five categories. Based on their scores, each country is then classified into any one of the four types of regime. Such as full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, authoritarian regime.
India slipped two places to 53rd position in the 2020 Democracy Index’s global ranking.
India’s overall score fell from 6.9 in 2019 to 6.61 in the Index that provides a snapshot of the current state of democracy worldwide for 167 countries.
India has been classified as a ‘flawed democracy’ along with countries such as the US, France, Belgium and Brazil.
However, India’s rank was higher than most of its neighbouring countries, such as Sri Lanka (68), Bangladesh (76), Bhutan (84) and Pakistan (105).
