The Netherlands moves into the top 10 on Economist's Democracy Index

The Netherlands once again ranked among the strongest democracies in the world, winding up in ninth place on the 2022 edition of the Democracy Index. The Netherlands moved up two places on the list produced nearly every year by The Economist since 2006. The Netherlands has never ranked lower than 12th place, and its highest ranking was third in the first year the Democracy Index was published.

Norway remained in first place for the 13th consecutive time. New Zealand, which has always ranked in the top three, stayed in second place. Iceland moved up from fifth to third, Sweden held in fourth, and Finland fell two spots to fifth. "These countries boast high scores across all categories, particularly electoral process and pluralism and functioning of government. Switzerland, Ireland and the Netherlands also rank among the top ten countries in the index; all three improved their scores in 2022," the report stated.

Thailand showed the biggest improvement, moving from 74th to 57th. Russia showed the sharpest decline, dropping from 132nd to 154th place, its worst ranking ever. The country with the worst ranking out of the 167 included on the list was Afghanistan, which was in the same position last year. That was again followed by Myanmar and North Korea. The bottom five this year rounded off with the Central African Republic and Syria.

Each country on the list is evaluated on multiple indicators, and then a score is given on a 10-point scale in the categories of electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. In these categories, the Netherlands scored 9.58, 8.93, 8.33, 8.75, and 9.41 respectively. Those totals were then averaged for an overall score of 9.00.

The global average remained nearly unchanged at 5.29. "This is a dismal result given that in 2022 the world started to move on from the pandemic-related suppression of individual liberties that persisted through 2020 and 2021," the report noted. Countries that score an 8.00 or better are classified as full democracies. Those scoring between 6.00 and 7.99 are considered flawed democracies, while those between 4.00 and 5.99 are considered hybrid regimes. A country is considered an authoritarian regime if it scores any worse.

Last year, 21 countries were considered full democracies. This year, the total was 24, with Chile, France and Spain returning to the list. Another 48 democracies were considered flawed, down from 53. "According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s measure of democracy, almost half of the world’s population live in a democracy of some sort (45.3%). Only 8% reside in a 'full democracy,' compared with 8.9% in 2015, before the U.S. was demoted from a 'full democracy' to a 'flawed democracy' in 2016. More than one-third of the world’s population live under authoritarian rule (36.9%), with a large share of them being in China and Russia," this year's report stated.

The number of hybrid regimes rose by two to 36, while there were 59 countries considered authoritarian regimes for the second straight year.

Ten strongest democracies in 2022 according to the Economist Intelligence Unit

Ten least democratic countries in 2022 according to the Economist Intelligence Unit