A Flawed Democracy
- John Rennie Short
- Nov 22, 2022
- 21 min read
Updated: Mar 12
Each year, The Economist publishes a Democracy Index. The 2022 edition listed 167 countries ranked on metrics of five dimensions: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture, and civil liberties. The US ranked 26th in the world. At the top of the list were Norway, New Zealand, Finland, and Sweden. At the bottom were North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. No real surprises there, but Taiwan (8), Uruguay (13), South Korea (16), UK (18), and Costa Rica (21) all outranked the US. The US had slipped over the past six years from a full democracy to a flawed democracy.[1]
