The Economist magazine’s Economist Intelligence Unit (“EIU”) has issued its Democracy Index 2022 report, which it does annually. For the seventh consecutive year, the United States has been rated as a “Flawed Democracy,” ranked 30th among all nations, down from 26th in the 2021 report.
In this report, nations are rated on a ten point scale, with “Full Democracies” earning a score between 8 and 10, and “Flawed Democracies” scoring between 6 and 8. The US Overall Score was 7.85.
“Hybrid Regimes” were nations that earned an Overall Score between 4 and 6. A score below 4 meant the nation has an Authoritarian Regime.
Each democracy’s Overall Score was an average of scores in five subcategories: Electoral Process & Pluralism, Functioning of Government, Political Participation, Political Culture and Civil Liberties. Within each of the five subcategories, there were between 8 and 17 fairly objective questions, each of which required a “Yes” or “No” or “In Between” answer.
The US’ lowest subcategory scores were 6.43 on Functioning of Government and 6.25 on Political Culture.
The report has an interesting and in-depth analysis of Russia’s inability to develop into a functioning democracy after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and how that led to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War.
Here is the report: