Economist's 2020 Global Democracy Index downgrades US to flawed democracy.

[BlueWavePsych]

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/02/global-democracy-has-a-very-bad-year

Every region of the world experienced a democratic rollback, but the removal of individual liberties in developed democracies was the most remarkable feature of 2020.

The Middle East and North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa both had a terrible year as autocratic leaders used the cover of the pandemic to crack down on opposition.

Asia gained three “full democracies” (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan), while Europe lost two (France and Portugal).

The US remains a “flawed democracy”, polarised not only on policy issues but on core values, and the social cohesion needed to support a “full democracy” has collapsed.

The deterioration in the global score in 2020 was driven by declines in the average regional score in every region, but especially by large falls in the “authoritarian regime”-dominated regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. The scores for these two regions declined by 0.10 and 0.09 respectively between 2019 and 2020. Western Europe and Eastern Europe both recorded a fall of 0.06 in their average regional scores. The score for Asia and Australasia, the region which has made most democratic progress during the lifetime of the Democracy Index, fell by 0.05. Latin America’s average score declined by 0.04 in 2020, marking the fifth consecutive year of regression for the region. The average score for North America fell by only 0.01, but a bigger decline of 0.04 in the US score was masked by an improvement in Canada’s score.

https://www.eiu.com/n/covid-19-pandemic-causes-a-global-democracy-slump/

[samsingh]

1. there are not alot of full Democracies in the World

[My Pet Orangutan]

2. There are 7 full democracies,

as judged by The Economist. The criteria must be pretty tight.

[Turin_C3PO]

3. Looks like only

Scandinavia, Iceland, Canada, and Ireland.