US and UK slip down global democracy rankings as Afghanistan becomes least democratic country

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Both the US and UK have slipped down the rankings of the world’s most democratic countries as Covid-19 restrictions continue to curtail citizen’s freedoms two years into the pandemic, according to an annual democracy index.

After a year which saw the global state of democracy slip from 5.37 in 2020 to 5.28 out of 10 in 2021, the United Kingdom fell two places, from 16 to 18, while the US dropped one place, from 25 to 26, in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index.

Afghanistan meanwhile was officially declared as the most undemocratic country by the Index, beating Myanmar and North Korea to the bottom spot, after the swift rise of the Taliban following the chaotic US withdrawal last summer.

A key factor in the global decline of democracy has been the persistent use of restrictions on personal freedoms due to the spread of Covid-19, the report said, as 2021 saw the emergence of new and more infectious variants.

The report said that while the downward trend did not begin with the pandemic, it has been compounded by states restricting civil liberties, such as lockdowns, travel bans and mandates relating to vaccines.

‘The pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented withdrawal of civil liberties among developed democracies and authoritarian regimes alike,’ the report says. 

This has been done ‘through the imposition of lockdowns and restrictions on travelling and, increasingly, the introduction of “green passes” requiring proof of vaccination against covid-19 for participation in public life. 

The report adds: ‘It has led to the normalisation of emergency powers, which have tended to stay on the statute books, and accustomed citizens to a huge extension of state power over large areas of public and personal life.’

The annual index rates the state of democracy of 167 countries out of 10, using 60 indicators grouped in five different categories.

These categories are electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties. 

EIU found that just 6.4 per cent of the world’s population enjoy a full democracy, while more than a third live under full authoritarian rule. 

Nordic countries dominated the top of the table, with Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland taking up four of the top five spots, completed by New Zealand (in second).

Afghanistan (167), Myanmar (166) and North Korea (165) made up the bottom three, while both Russia (124) and China (148) also fell into the ‘authoritarian’ category.

China in particular was singled out by the report, which this year was titled ‘The China Challenge’. It said the country is on track to become the world’s dominant superpower, with the authoritarian CCP at the helm, posing a global challenge.

‘As opposed to the Western governance model, which is based on electoral democracy and representative political parties, China repudiates popular sovereignty in favour of a combination of political authoritarianism and technocracy,’ the report says. 

The role of the state in China has been of particular focus during the pandemic – and in recent months in the build up to the Winter Olympics in Beijing – as it continues to employ a zero-Covid strategy, locking down regions at the smallest sign of Covid.   

The EIU awards 167 countries a score out of 10 based on their performance in each of the five categories mentioned above, which are then averaged to determine their overall score and their place in the index.

Countries are then further divided into four types of regime: ‘full democracy’, ‘flawed democracy’, ‘hybrid regime’ or ‘authoritarian regime.’ 

Britain fell to 17th place out of 167 but remained ‘stable’ despite resistance to changing coronavirus measures – though the recent events of Partygate are likely to impact the UK’s score for 2022. 

By contrast, America has remained a ‘flawed democracy’ – the category it fell into after Donald Trump took office in 2016, and slipped one place down the order with Joe Biden at the helm.

The EIU’s report said that the United States overall score remained ‘weighed down by the country’s intense levels of political and cultural polarisation’.

Political infighting and ‘institutional gridlock’ brought the nation’s scores in political culture and functioning of government categories down to a new low, while the question of abortion laws and coronavirus policies posed further problems. 

The report pointed fingers at the United States’ ‘highly politicised media, including the main network TV channels’, as one of the main drivers behind the divisions which are crippling its democracy scores.  

Afghanistan meanwhile, which did not make an appearance in the list’s bottom 10 last year, tumbled right to the bottom of the pile in 2021 amid the resurgence of the Taliban.

As the US and other allied nations withdrew troops and personnel from the nation last summer, the Taliban stormed to power and re-introduced its brutal interpretation of Sharia law for the first time in two decades. 

The Taliban’s leaders promised they had softened their stances and policies in comparison to their predecessors, but their vice-like grip on the country was still strong enough to ensure Afghanistan placed firmly last in the Democracy Index, even below pariah state North Korea and Myanmar, which last year suffered a military coup.

The report said: ‘The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, which followed the collapse of an elected government, and the coup d’état in Myanmar, were the two most prominent cases of democratic regression in 2021.

‘In Afghanistan elections were banned and civil rights severely curtailed. Women are excluded from political participation and sex segregation is strictly enforced.’

Afghanistan was the only country on the list to receive an overall score less than 1, registering 0.32. 

Myanmar – which last year saw a military coup – and North Korea received scores of 1.02 and 1.08 respectively. 

The EIU’s report pointed to continued restrictions as a result of the pandemic as being the main catalyst of democratic decline across the world. 

‘The pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented withdrawal of civil liberties among developed democracies and authoritarian regimes alike, through the imposition of lockdowns and restrictions on travelling and, increasingly, the introduction of ‘green passes’ requiring proof of vaccination against covid-19 for participation in public life,’ it said.

The report also pointed out that ’emergency powers’ enjoyed by governments during the pandemic are likely to stay in place in one way or another, as world leaders have normalised their use while citizens have become accustomed to an extension of the state’s power over their daily lives.

Western Europe has a high concentration of established democracies according to the index, with the Nordics leading the charge as the most democratic nations. 

Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark are among the top seven most democratic countries in the world, with Norway retaining the top spot from last year ‘thanks to its very high scores for electoral process and pluralism, political participation, and civil liberties’. 

Countries in western Europe account for seven of the top ten places in the global democracy rankings and over half of the nations classified as ‘full democracies’ (12 out of 21).