Most and Least Democratic Countries in the World (2025)

Democracy is the most studied, most debated, and most unevenly distributed form of government on earth. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2024 — published in 2025 and covering 167 countries using 60 indicators — only 25 countries qualify as full democracies. Another 46 are flawed democracies. The remaining 96 countries, home to the majority of the world's population, operate under hybrid regimes or outright authoritarian governments. The most alarming finding of the latest index: the global average score has declined again, continuing a trend that has now persisted for most of the period since 2006.

Key takeaways

• Norway has maintained the world's highest democracy score (9.81) for multiple consecutive years, demonstrating the stability of mature Nordic democratic institutions.
• The United States scores 7.85 — classified as a "flawed democracy" since 2016, reflecting concerns about political polarization, institutional trust, and electoral integrity.
• Only 25 of 167 countries assessed qualify as full democracies in the EIU's 2024 index — the global average score has declined in most measurement periods since 2006.
• Taiwan (8.92) is a notable rising democracy, scoring higher than many EU member states despite not being recognised by the UN as a sovereign state.
• Hungary has been reclassified by the EU as an "electoral autocracy" despite being an EU member state — the most dramatic democratic backsliding within a Western alliance since World War II.

Methodology: How the EIU Democracy Index Works

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, published annually since 2006, measures 167 countries and territories on a 0–10 scale. The score is derived from 60 indicators across five equally weighted categories.

Electoral process and pluralism covers whether elections are free and fair, whether multiple parties compete, whether elected officials actually hold power, and whether the military is subordinate to civilian authority.

Functioning of government measures whether the government can implement policy, whether there is effective legislative oversight, whether corruption limits government effectiveness, and whether the civil service functions independently.

Political participation tracks voter turnout, political party membership, civic engagement, women's participation in politics, and adult literacy (as a prerequisite for meaningful participation).

Political culture assesses public attitudes toward democracy, separation of church and state, attitudes toward political violence, and social consensus on governance norms.

Civil liberties covers freedom of expression, assembly, religion, and the press; judicial independence; rule of law; and protection from arbitrary detention.

Countries scoring above 8.0 are "full democracies." Scores between 6.0 and 8.0 are "flawed democracies." Between 4.0 and 6.0 are "hybrid regimes." Below 4.0 are "authoritarian regimes."

This classification matters because it distinguishes between countries that hold elections but systematically undermine democratic institutions and countries that maintain genuine democratic processes. An electoral autocracy like Hungary or Venezuela holds elections while controlling media, judiciary, and campaign finance in ways that make those elections non-competitive in substance.

Source: EIU Democracy Index 2024 — eiu.com

Where this data comes from

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index aggregates data from 60 indicators across five categories, drawing on Freedom House's Freedom in the World assessments, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators, IDEA's Parliament Survey, and Freedom of the Press Index. The EIU's in-house expert research team adds supplementary assessment. Scores range from 0–100, categorised as full democracies (8.0+), flawed democracies (6.0–8.0), hybrid regimes (4.0–6.0), and authoritarian regimes (<4.0). The index is one of several global democracy measures; Freedom House and the V-Dem Institute use different methodologies and sometimes produce divergent rankings, though consensus is generally strong on top and bottom performers. The "perceptions" element — surveying experts and business leaders on subjective governance quality — introduces judgement; objective indices (election competitiveness, judicial independence metrics) provide greater precision but capture only part of democratic quality.

Analytical insight: democracy is reversible at scale

The EIU's principal finding — global democracy scores declining since 2006 — reflects troubling reality: democratic backsliding outpaces democratisation. Hungary (NATO/EU member) declined to "electoral autocracy" status despite holding elections, because the Orban government captured media, judiciary, and electoral systems. India (1.4 billion people) fell from "full" to "flawed" democracy under Modi as religious nationalism, media control, and polarisation weakened institutions. The USA declined from 7.9 to 7.85 due to institutional distrust and January 6th. These cases show democracies are not self-sustaining; they require active institutional maintenance. Nordic democracies' consistency (top 5 positions continuously) and Taiwan's success (8.92 despite non-recognition) suggest democratic quality depends on specific features: independent judiciary, competitive elections, free press, rule of law applied to elites. Democracies maintaining these survive; those weakening them unravel even if elections continue formally. The concentration of "full democracy" status in small wealthy nations (10 million population or fewer) and its rarity in large diverse democracies suggests that scale and heterogeneity create institutional strain — larger, more diverse polities may face inherent democratic fragility.

Top 20 Most Democratic Countries (EIU Democracy Index, 2024)

Rank	Country	Score	Category	Electoral	Civil Liberties	Government
1	Norway	9.81	Full Democracy	10.0	9.71	9.64
2	New Zealand	9.61	Full Democracy	10.0	9.71	9.29
3	Iceland	9.45	Full Democracy	9.58	9.41	9.64
4	Sweden	9.39	Full Democracy	9.58	9.41	9.29
5	Finland	9.30	Full Democracy	9.58	9.71	8.93
6	Denmark	9.28	Full Democracy	9.58	9.71	8.93
7	Ireland	9.19	Full Democracy	9.58	9.41	8.93
8	Switzerland	9.14	Full Democracy	9.58	9.12	9.29
9	Netherlands	9.00	Full Democracy	9.58	9.12	8.93
10	Taiwan	8.92	Full Democracy	9.17	8.82	9.29
11	Luxembourg	8.91	Full Democracy	9.17	9.41	8.57
12	Germany	8.80	Full Democracy	9.58	8.82	8.57
13	UK	8.75	Full Democracy	9.58	9.12	8.21
14	Canada	8.74	Full Democracy	9.58	9.12	8.21
15	Uruguay	8.70	Full Democracy	10.0	8.53	7.86
16	Austria	8.69	Full Democracy	9.58	8.82	8.21
17	Australia	8.68	Full Democracy	9.58	9.12	7.86
18	Japan	8.40	Full Democracy	8.75	8.53	8.21
19	Costa Rica	8.29	Full Democracy	9.58	8.53	7.14
20	USA	7.85	Flawed Democracy	9.17	8.53	7.14

The World's Most Authoritarian Regimes

Rank (Bottom)	Country	Score	Key Issues
1	North Korea	1.08	Total state control
2	Myanmar	1.62	Military junta
3	Turkmenistan	1.72	Gas-funded autocracy
4	Chad	1.73	Military rule
5	Syria	1.79	Post-Assad instability
6	Central African Republic	1.88	Fragmented authority
7	Tajikistan	1.94	Rahmon family rule
8	Equatorial Guinea	2.08	Obiang dynasty
9	Saudi Arabia	2.08	Absolute monarchy
10	Belarus	2.16	Lukashenko authoritarianism

A Brief History of Democracy Measurement

The challenge of measuring democracy is that democracy is not a binary condition — it is a spectrum with genuine ambiguities at almost every point.

Robert Dahl, the political scientist whose work most influenced modern democracy measurement, used the term "polyarchy" rather than democracy to describe the actually existing systems of competitive government in the 20th century. His framework focused on two dimensions: contestation (can political competition occur?) and participation (can all citizens participate?). Most electoral systems that call themselves democracies are, in Dahl's framework, imperfect polyarchies — they meet some conditions better than others.

The EIU index's five-category approach is the most widely cited, but it is not the only one. The V-Dem Institute (Varieties of Democracy) at the University of Gothenburg produces a more granular academic dataset covering over 400 indicators across multiple dimensions of democracy. Freedom House's Freedom in the World report focuses specifically on civil liberties and political rights. The Bertelsmann Transformation Index covers democratisation in developing and transition countries. These indices correlate strongly with each other for extreme cases — North Korea is authoritarian on every measure; Norway is democratic on every measure — but differ significantly in the middle of the distribution, which is where most of the world lives.

The EIU index has been criticised for being subjective in some of its expert-survey components. The V-Dem institute has been criticised for the complexity that makes it less accessible to non-specialists. Both are legitimate objections to imperfect tools. What the tools agree on is the direction of the global trend: democracies have been weakening and authoritarian regimes strengthening for most of the period since 2006.

Source: V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg — v-dem.net

Why Norway Scores 9.81

Norway's position at the top of global democracy rankings is not an accident of geography or a recent achievement. It is the product of institutional design choices made and refined over more than a century.

Proportional representation is the foundation of Norway's political system. The Storting (parliament) is elected through proportional representation, meaning a party receiving 15% of votes receives roughly 15% of seats. This design prevents the winner-takes-all dynamics that produce adversarial, zero-sum politics in first-past-the-post systems like the US and UK. Norwegian governments are almost always coalitions, which requires compromise-building as a structural feature rather than an exceptional event.

An independent judiciary and free press provide the institutional skeleton of accountability. Norwegian courts have genuine independence from executive pressure. Norway scores near the top of the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. An independent media creates the scrutiny of power that democratic accountability requires — politicians who know they will be reported accurately behave differently from those operating in information environments they can manipulate.

High political participation reflects genuine civic engagement. Norwegian voter turnout regularly exceeds 75–80% in national elections. Compared to 50–60% typical of US federal elections and 60–67% in UK general elections, this breadth of participation distributes political influence more evenly and makes government more representative.

The sovereign wealth fund as democratic institution: Norway's Government Pension Fund Global — built from North Sea oil revenues and managed by Norges Bank Investment Management — holds assets exceeding $1.7 trillion as of 2024. [SOURCE NEEDED: exact current figure] The fund operates under strict democratic governance: full public transparency, parliamentary oversight, and explicit ethical investment guidelines. This demonstrates that natural resource wealth, which produces authoritarian "resource curse" dynamics in most countries, can be managed democratically when institutions are strong enough.

Trust as a democratic asset: Surveys consistently show Norwegians trust their government, courts, police, and media at rates far higher than comparable populations. This trust is earned and maintained rather than manufactured — it reflects decades of institutions performing as expected, corruption being rare and prosecuted when it occurs, and government delivering on its commitments. Trust makes democratic governance more efficient because citizens comply with rules voluntarily rather than requiring enforcement at every point.

Source: Norges Bank Investment Management — nbim.no

The United States as a Flawed Democracy

The EIU's classification of the United States as a "flawed democracy" — consistently since 2016 — is among the most debated findings in comparative politics.

The US scored 7.85 on the 2024 index. That places it below all Western European full democracies, below Taiwan, below Uruguay, and just above South Korea and Japan in the regional ranking. A country that has constitutionally exported democratic institutions — through Cold War democracy promotion, Marshall Plan institution-building, and decades of foreign policy that used democratic governance as a legitimacy criterion for allies — now scores lower than Costa Rica on the EIU's measure.

What drives the score down? The EIU's methodology identifies several specific factors. Political polarization has reached levels that impair legislative function: the US Congress passed fewer laws per session in 2019–2024 than in any equivalent period in the post-WWII era. Institutional trust has declined across all major institutions — Congress, the Supreme Court, the media, the executive branch — to historical lows. Electoral confidence: a substantial minority of Americans do not accept the legitimacy of election results, which the EIU scores as a democratic weakness because legitimacy is what makes democratic transitions of power function.

The US's electoral process scores remain relatively high (9.17) — elections are competitive and contested. The weakness shows in the government functioning category (7.14) and political culture (7.14), reflecting the difficulty of operating effective democratic governance in a severely polarised environment.

The important clarification is that the US remains a genuine democracy by global standards. Americans enjoy competitive elections, a free press, independent courts, and vibrant civil society. The "flawed democracy" classification is comparative — the US performs materially worse than peer nations on specific institutional indicators. Democratic decline is not a cliff; it is a slope. And the EIU's concern is that the slope continues in one direction.

Source: EIU Democracy Index 2024 full report — eiu.com

Taiwan: Democracy Against Existential Pressure

Taiwan's score of 8.92 makes it one of the world's most democratic societies and the highest-scoring Asian country. This is remarkable for reasons that go beyond the score itself.

Taiwan was under martial law from 1949 to 1987 — 38 years, the longest martial law period in modern history at the time. The Kuomintang (KMT) government that fled mainland China and took control of Taiwan after the Communist victory maintained authoritarian rule backed by extensive security apparatus. Democratic reform emerged from domestic civil society pressure in the late 1980s, culminating in the first direct presidential election in 1996.

Taiwan now operates a robust multi-party democracy with free media, genuinely competitive elections that have produced multiple peaceful transfers of power between parties, strong civil liberties, and a judicial system that functions with real independence. The 2024 presidential election — won by the Democratic Progressive Party's Lai Ching-te — proceeded without incident despite intense pressure and military provocations from mainland China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province.

Taiwan's democratic innovation extends beyond the electoral. The g0v (gov-zero) civic technology movement has pioneered digital democracy tools — including vTaiwan, a platform for structured public deliberation on contested policy issues — that have attracted international attention as models for participatory governance. Taiwan's use of digital tools during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that transparency, participatory communication, and effective public health response are compatible rather than in tension.

The geopolitical dimension makes Taiwan's democracy significant beyond its own borders. China's insistence that "Taiwan is China" and that Taiwan's democratic system is merely an obstacle to reunification has made Taiwan's democratic quality a frontline question in the broader contest between authoritarian and democratic models of governance. Taiwan's continued democratic functioning is a direct empirical challenge to the argument that democracy is culturally limited to certain traditions.

Source: Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2024 — Taiwan — freedomhouse.org

Democratic Backsliding: The Global Pattern

The most alarming finding in 2025 democracy data is not the continued authoritarianism of obvious cases like North Korea or Turkmenistan — it is the breadth of decline among countries that had been considered functioning democracies.

Hungary presents the most studied case. Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party, elected in 2010 with a constitutional supermajority, systematically rebuilt Hungary's institutional landscape over the following decade. Electoral laws were redrawn to favour the ruling party. Independent courts were packed with loyalists. The independent media landscape was dismantled — most major media outlets in Hungary are now owned by businesspeople affiliated with Fidesz. The state broadcaster functions as a government mouthpiece. Universities were pressured; Central European University was forced to relocate to Vienna. All of this was accomplished through formally legal procedures — constitutional amendments, legislative changes, and use of executive authority — which is precisely what makes it a model for "democratic backsliding" rather than a coup. The EU Parliament voted in 2022 to declare Hungary a "hybrid regime" rather than a full democracy, the first time this classification had been applied to an EU member state.

India — the world's largest democracy by population — has seen significant democratic erosion under BJP governments since 2014. Press freedom rankings have fallen sharply: India ranked 159th of 180 countries in the 2024 Reporters Without Borders index. Critics of the government, particularly those questioning the treatment of Muslim minorities, have faced sedition charges and tax investigations. Judicial appointments have been politicised. India's EIU score has declined, though it remains in the flawed democracy category. India's elections remain competitive — the BJP lost its outright parliamentary majority in the 2024 general election — but the institutional environment for democratic competition has measurably worsened.

Israel entered a constitutional crisis in 2023 when the Netanyahu government proposed judicial reforms that critics described as a systematic weakening of Supreme Court independence. Unprecedented mass protests — involving hundreds of thousands of Israelis across weeks of demonstrations — temporarily halted the reforms, but the underlying political conflict over judicial independence continued.

Brazil faced the most dramatic test of democratic resilience in January 2023 when supporters of outgoing President Bolsonaro stormed the presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court in a riot modelled on the January 6, 2021 events in the US. Unlike the US events, Brazilian security forces dispersed the rioters within hours and democratic institutions were not disrupted. Brazil's democracy survived, but the episode confirmed the global spread of political movements willing to use violence to contest democratic outcomes.

The pattern across these cases is consistent: backsliding happens incrementally, using legal instruments, building on polarisation, targeting judiciary and media before elections themselves. By the time elections are formally compromised, earlier institutional safeguards have already been weakened. V-Dem Institute calls this pattern "autocratization" — the gradual erosion of democratic norms and institutions within formally electoral systems.

Source: Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index — rsf.org

What Full Democracies Have in Common

The 25 countries that qualify as full democracies in the 2024 EIU index cluster in recognisable patterns.

Geographically, they are concentrated in Northern Europe, with outliers in the Anglosphere (New Zealand, Canada, Australia, UK), Western Europe (Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland), and scattered elsewhere (Uruguay, Taiwan, Japan, Costa Rica). No country in Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia qualifies as a full democracy.

Institutionally, they share features that reinforce each other: proportional or mixed electoral systems that require coalition-building; independent judiciaries with genuine authority to overrule governments; free press environments where investigative journalism is protected and practised; and civil society organisations with meaningful capacity to organise and advocate.

Economically, they are predominantly wealthy — though the correlation is not simple causation. Uruguay and Costa Rica are middle-income countries with full democracy scores; several wealthy Gulf states and wealthy Asian countries score in the authoritarian range. Wealth correlates with democracy partly because wealthy societies have larger educated middle classes with stakes in rule-of-law protections, and partly because the institutions that produce wealth (property rights, contract enforcement, regulatory independence) overlap with institutions that sustain democracy.

The deeper commonality is institutional trust — citizens of high-scoring democracies believe their institutions function roughly as they are supposed to. This trust enables the system to operate because compliance with democratic outcomes (including electoral defeats) depends on accepting that the process was legitimate. Once that trust erodes, each democratic procedure — from election administration to judicial rulings — becomes contested, and the cycle of polarisation and institutional weakening accelerates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Which country is the most democratic in the world? A: Norway ranks as the world's most democratic country with an EIU Democracy Index score of 9.81 out of 10 as of the 2024 index, a position it has maintained consistently for many years. Iceland and New Zealand consistently occupy the top five as well.

Q: Is the United States a full democracy? A: No. The EIU classifies the United States as a "flawed democracy" with a score of 7.85, rather than a "full democracy" (which requires a score above 8.0). The US has been in the flawed democracy category since 2016. It scores relatively well on electoral process (9.17) but lower on government functioning (7.14) and political culture (7.14), reflecting political polarisation and declining institutional trust.

Q: What is the least democratic country? A: North Korea consistently scores lowest on global democracy indices — EIU score of approximately 1.08 — reflecting total state control over political processes, media, civil society, and individual freedoms. Citizens face criminal penalties for accessing outside information, there is no political competition, and the government's claims about the population's preferences cannot be independently verified.

Q: What does the Democracy Index actually measure? A: The EIU Democracy Index measures 60 indicators across five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Countries scoring above 8.0 are "full democracies"; 6.0–8.0 are "flawed democracies"; 4.0–6.0 are "hybrid regimes"; below 4.0 are "authoritarian regimes." It combines measurable indicators (voter turnout, press freedom scores) with expert assessments.

Q: Is global democracy improving or declining? A: Declining, overall. Since 2006, the global average EIU democracy score has fallen in most assessment periods. The number of full democracies (25 in 2024) is lower than it was a decade ago. The share of the world's population living under authoritarian governments has increased. The V-Dem Institute's more granular analysis identifies a sustained autocratization trend affecting countries that were previously counted as democracies.

Q: Why do Nordic countries consistently dominate democracy rankings? A: Several structural factors converge. Nordic countries use proportional representation, which prevents winner-takes-all dynamics and requires coalition politics. They have high social trust — between citizens and institutions — built over generations of institutions that delivered on their commitments. They have strong and independent press traditions. They integrated women fully into political participation earlier than most countries. Their high social equality reduces the economic inequality that tends to translate into political inequality in other systems. These factors reinforce each other: proportional representation reduces polarisation; low polarisation sustains institutional trust; institutional trust enables effective governance; effective governance justifies high trust.

The Takeaway

The global democratic picture of 2025 is one of islands of stable, high-functioning democracy amid a troubled sea of backsliding and authoritarianism. The top performers — Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, and the Nordic cluster — demonstrate that the combination of proportional representation, judicial independence, press freedom, and high public trust creates self-reinforcing institutional stability. The most urgent finding is that democratic decline is not confined to obvious authoritarian states: Hungary has become an electoral autocracy within the EU; the United States has been a flawed democracy for nearly a decade; India's press freedom has collapsed. Democracy, as its defenders have always argued, is not a permanent achievement but a continuous practice that must be actively maintained against the consistent pressure of those who would use democratic procedures to end democratic accountability.

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