Democracy Index
Democracy Index by country
Commentary
Notable countries
Norway leads the Democracy Index at 9.81, followed by New Zealand at 9.62, while Europe dominates the top ranks with eight of the top ten positions. At the other end, Afghanistan is last at 0.25, with Myanmar (0.96) and North Korea (1.08) also among the lowest-scoring countries. A notable surprise is Luxembourg sharing ninth place with Canada at 9.08, while several of the very lowest scores are concentrated in both Asia and Africa.
Regional trends
Europe has the highest regional average at 7.442, narrowly ahead of Oceania at 7.44, showing a clear concentration of stronger democracy scores in those regions. South America, at 6.194, sits above the global mean of 5.191, while North America at 5.678 is also above average but notably below Europe and Oceania. Asia (4.018) and Africa (3.912) have the lowest regional averages, indicating weaker overall performance on this measure.
Data source
The data come from the 2025 EIU Democracy Index, with values reported in an unspecified unit where higher is better. Coverage includes 166 countries. A caveat is that the unit is not specified in the dataset provided, so comparisons should be read as index scores rather than a physical measure.
Interpretation
Higher values indicate stronger democratic performance, while lower values point to weaker democratic conditions on this index. The wide spread between Norway’s 9.81 and Afghanistan’s 0.25, alongside a global mean of 5.191, suggests very uneven democratic outcomes across countries. Overall, the data show that high-performing democracies are concentrated mainly in Europe and Oceania, while many of the weakest scores are found in Asia and Africa.