Question: Which rank does India have in the latest Democracy Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)?
(a) 21st
(b) 31st
(c) 41st
(d) 51st
Answer: (c)
Related facts:
- The latest list of Democracy Index was released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranking 167 countries by 60 indicators across five categories which are electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties. India ranked 41st in the list with a score of 7.3/10 and classified as Flawed democracy.
- The report has 4 classifications of democracies terming them as Authoritarian regime (scoring from 0 to 4), Hybrid regime (4 to 6), Flawed democracy (6 to 8), and Full democracy (8 & above).
Facts & findings of report:
- This overall puts a positive outlook of global democracy with improvement in women`s participation and willingness of people to engage in lawful demonstrations despite a growing disillusionment with formal political institutions.
- Only 4.5% of the world lives in a full democracy. 42 countries experienced a decline while 48 showed improvement. The report also mentions that democracy has decreased in Europe and many other advanced democracies.
- The report mentions the threat to democracies around the world have become more obvious: frizzled Arab Spring, lifetime rule adoption in China, Populists with autocratic tendencies have won elections in the Philippines, Brazil and Mexico and subverted democratic institutions in Hungary, Turkey and Poland.
- Political participation showed most improvement as compared to any other measure in the Index.
Rankings:
- The index ranked a total of 167 countries in which Norway topped the list with a score of 9.87 while North Korea ranked last with a score of 1.08.
- Japan is ranked 22nd while USA is ranked 25th. Australia and New Zealand are the only Full Democracies in the whole Asia-Pacific region.
- Indian neighbours Bhutan, Nepal, China and Afghanistan were ranked 94th, 97th, 130th and 143rd respectively.
Links:
http://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-index
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/01/08/the-retreat-of-global-democracy-stopped-in-2018
https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-moves-up-a-rank-on-the-economist-s-democracy-index-2018-119010900782_1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index