Russia is the country in the world where democracy fell the most in 2022, ahead of Burkina Faso and Haiti, according to a study released on Thursday by British group The Economist, which compiles an index of democracy in 167 countries.
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After the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s Democracy Index recorded its biggest drop in 2022, falling 22 places in the world rankings in this study by the Group’s Research and Analysis Unit (EIU), which ranks Russia at 146th place.
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The war in Ukraine “showed the divisions between developed democracies that support Ukraine and many developing countries that chose not to take sides,” the study points out.
Among the “authoritarian regimes” are other countries such as Haiti, “which appears to be in a state of internal dissolution” (135th, -16 places) and Burkina Faso (127th, -16 places), where “an Islamist Uprising losing control of part of territory to the state” also recorded a sharp drop in its index in 2022.
Conversely, Thailand is the country with the strongest index increase in 2022, moving up 17 spots in the ranking to 55th.
The lifting of restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic has improved the scores of many countries, including France (22nd, stable), Spain (also 22nd, +2 places) and Chile (19th +6 places), the return to the group of “full democracies”.
From a regional perspective, Western Europe is the only region that was able to significantly improve its rating in 2022.
“Those from North America, Asia, Australasia, Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa are flat, and those from Latin America, the Middle East and ‘North Africa’ suffered declines,” the study adds.
Globally, the 2022 Democracy Index fell from 5.28 in 2021 to 5.29 in 2022. A stabilization after falling 0.09 points last year.
But as in 2021, in 2022 less than half the world’s population lived in a democracy and just 8% in a “full democracy”, in a ranking still led by Norway and closed by Afghanistan.
The study identifies five categories of criteria for the creation of the ranking: electoral processes and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.