The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy
worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories. This covers almost the entire population
of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states (microstates are excluded). The Democracy
Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning
of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on a range of
indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of
regime: “full democracy”; “flawed democracy”; “hybrid regime”; and “authoritarian regime”. A full
methodology and explanations can be found in the Appendix.