Bangladesh moves two notches up on democracy index

Bangladesh has continued its steady progression and has moved up to 73rd among 167 countries on the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Democracy Index 2022, yet its scores remained unchanged.

The annual survey, released on Thursday, evaluates the state of democracy in countries worldwide based on five key areas: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.

Bangladesh is still classified as a hybrid regime, meaning there are substantial irregularities that prevent elections from being free and fair, widespread corruption and weak implementation of law, according to the EIU.

The research and analysis division of the Economist Group rates the countries on a scale of 10. Bangladesh obtained an overall score of 5.99 – the same as 2021, while the highest score attainable is 10. 

The initial release of the Democracy Index in 2006, categorised Bangladesh as a flawed democracy with a score of 6.11. The following year, it demoted Bangladesh's status to the category of a hybrid regime and it has remained unchanged since then.

The latest scores for Bangladesh are unchanged from 2021. It scored 7.42 in electoral process and pluralism, 6.07 in the functioning of government, 5.56 in political participation, 5.63 in political culture and 5.29 in civil liberties.

Democracy in South Asia

Bangladesh has retained its third spot amongst the South Asian countries.

India tops the list of South Asian countries with an overall score of 7.04, being ranked 46th. The neighbouring country is followed by Sri Lanka, which has substantially improved its ranking to 60th after climbing 7 spots and scoring 6.47.

The remaining four countries did worse than Bangladesh. Bhutan ranked 84th, Nepal 101st and Pakistan claimed the 107th position.

Afghanistan is not only the worst in South Asia but is also ranked at the bottom (167th) overall receiving a classification of an authoritarian regime.

Global outlook 

The EIU report says that overall, the long decline of global democracy, stalled in 2022. The global score of 5.29, a rise of just 0.01 from the previous year, represents a story of stagnation.

The latest edition finds that only 8% of the world's population live in full democracies, while more than one-third (36.9%) live under authoritarian rule.

Stating that more countries managed to improve their score in 2022 than in 2021 (75 compared with 47), the report noted more than half of the countries measured by the index (92) either stagnated or declined in terms of their average index score.

Norway remains the top-ranked country in the Democracy Index, while Russia recorded the biggest decline of -0.96 in the overall score of any country in the world in 2022.