Democracy Index 2023: Two Steps Down The Democracy Rankings

Bangladesh has slipped two notches to rank 75th among 167 countries on the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2023 as its score hit a 5-year low. On Thursday, released The annual index rated the state of democracy in countries across the globe on the basis of five categories – electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.

With an overall score of 5.87 on a scale of 10, Bangladesh remains classified as a "hybrid regime". A score of 10 would mean the best performance. The EIU defines "hybrid regimes" as those countries where "elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair." 

Besides, "government pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common" in these countries.  Meanwhile serious weaknesses are more prevalent in "hybrid regimes" compared to "flawed democracies", encompassing political culture, functioning of government and political participation. 

"Corruption tends to be widespread and the rule of law is weak. Civil society is weak. Typically, there is harassment of and pressure on journalists, and the judiciary is not independent," as defined by The Economist Group's research and analysis division.  Bangladesh's score fell from 5.99 and its ranking dropped from 73rd in the 2022 index. The country scored the same in 2021 and 2020, while it scored 5.88 in 2019 and 5.57 in 2018.

On the first Democracy Index released in 2006, Bangladesh was categorised as a flawed democracy with a score of 6.11. The following year, its status demoted to the category of "hybrid regime" and it has remained so ever since. Among the five categories, Bangladesh's score has only deteriorated in civil liberties to 4.71 in 2023 from 5.29 a year ago.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh's scores in electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation and democratic political culture have remained unchanged at 7.42, 6.07, 5.56 and 5.63 respectively.

The index says, "South Asia and Southeast Asia already had the lowest scores of all the continent's sub-regions, and setbacks in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand mean that the two regions have fallen even further behind."

Pakistan has nosedived in the index, and is now being considered an authoritarian regime. Both Bhutan and Nepal's score is lower than that of Bangladesh, while Sri Lanka scored higher, and is considered a flawed democracy.

Afghanistan ranked the worst, being classified as the worst authoritarian regime in the world, while Myanmar is the second-worst. Myanmar is worse than North Korea. According to the index, both the US and India are flawed democracies, while Canada, Norway, Finland and Sweden are full democracies.

The Nordic countries – Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark – continued to dominate the Democracy Index rankings, taking five of the top six spots, with New Zealand claiming second place.