The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released the thirteenth edition of its “Democracy Index” in which it measures the state of democracy in 167 countries (165 independent states and 2 territories) around the globe in the year 2020. Said index is the arithmetic average of the scores reported in five major dimensions of democracy, namely “electoral process and pluralism”, “civil liberties”, “the functioning of government”, “political participation”, and “political culture”. The report also classifies countries under four main types of regimes, namely “full democracies” (score: 8-10), “flawed democracies” (score: 6-7.9), “hybrid regimes” (score: 4-5.9), and “authoritarian regimes” (score: 0-4). In this vein, 23 countries (13.8% of countries covered; 8.4% of world population) emerged as “full democracies”, 52 countries (31.1% of countries covered; 41.0% of world population) as “flawed democracies”, 35 countries (21.0% of countries covered; 15.0% of world population) as “hybrid regimes”, and 57 countries (34.1% of countries covered; 35.6% of world population) as “authoritarian regimes”. According to the findings of the EIU report, the year 2020 saw a setback in civil liberties worldwide as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, sending the global index score to an all-time low of 5.37. More specifically, some 116 nations experienced a deterioration in their total score compared with 2019 scores and only 38 recorded an improvement in their overall score. Nevertheless, the report highlighted that 49.4% of the world’s population lived in some form of democracy compared to a lower proportion of 48.4% in 2019. In the same vein, the report added that only 8.4% of the world’s population lived in full democracy and more than one third lived under an authoritarian regime, with a big share represented by China alone.

In figures, and on a global level, Norway topped the list of the world’s most democratic countries (score: 9.81) for yet a consecutive year, followed by Iceland (score: 9.37) and Sweden (score: 9.26). The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remained the poorest performing region in the world in the 2020 Democracy Index, recording in the process the second highest drop in score. After political and social unrest in early 2010, most of the region’s nations witnessed only marginal changes in their respective democracy scores. Tunisia, characterized by a “flawed democracy”, ranked first in the region in the 2020 Democracy Index, with an overall score of 6.59 while also ranking 54^th in the world regressing by 1 position from 2019. Morocco, which was considered as a “hybrid regime”, came second (score: 5.04; global rank: 96) maintaining the same rank year-on-year, followed by Lebanon (“hybrid regime”) which scored 4.16 and ranked 108^th in the world, dropping by 2 positions on a yearly basis. The report noted that Lebanon witnessed increased intimidations and disappearances of civil rights activists in an attempt by the ruling class to face the popular uprising.