The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released the fifteenth 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 2022. 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: 6-7.99), “hybrid regimes” (score: 4-5.99), and “authoritarian regimes” (score: 0-4). In this vein, 24 countries (14.4% of countries covered; 8.0% of world population) emerged as “full democracies”, 48 countries (28.7% of countries covered; 37.3% of world population) as “flawed democracies”, 36 countries (21.6% of countries covered; 17.9% of world population) as “hybrid regimes”, and 59 countries (35.3% of countries covered; 36.9% of world population) as “authoritarian regimes”. According to the findings of the EIU report, the year 2022 saw a stagnation in civil liberties worldwide, as the score slightly improved from an all-time low of 5.28 in 2021 to 5.29 in 2022, with the EIU attributing the low civil liberty levels to the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, some 75 nations experienced a deterioration in their total score compared with 2021 scores and only 47 recorded an improvement in their overall score. Nevertheless, the report highlighted that 45.3% of the world’s population lived in some form of democracy compared to a higher proportion of 45.7% in 2021. In the same vein, the report added that only 8.0% of the world’s population lived in full democracy and more than one third (36.9%) lived under an authoritarian regime, with a big share represented by China & Russia alone.

In figures, and on a global level, Norway topped the list of the world’s most democratic countries (score: 9.81) for yet another consecutive year, followed by New Zealand (score: 9.61) and Iceland (score: 9.52). The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remained the poorest performing region in the world in the 2022 Democracy Index, with its average even dropping in 2022 to 3.34 down from 3.41 a year ago, with the worst performing countries being concentrated in the Levant region. Tunisia, characterized by a “hybrid regime”, ranked first in the region in the 2022 Democracy Index, with an overall score of 5.51 while also ranking 85^th in the world regressing by 10 positions from 2021. Morocco, also falling under the “hybrid regime”, came second (score: 5.04; global rank: 95) also preserving its 2021 rank. Lebanon, on the other hand, witnessed another sharp annual deterioration in its overall score, remaining in the “authoritarian” regime territory, as its score nose-dived from 3.84 in 2021 to 3.64 in 2022, ranking as such 115^th on a global basis and 7^th on a regional basis. The report attributed the decline in Lebanon’s score to concerns over lack of accountability for public officials added the country’s failing public institutions.