We show the 2020 Democracy ratings of countries of current concern to the US. The source of the ratings is the V-Dem Institute at V-dem.net. We use data from Version 10 of April 2020. The North American Regional Center is the Kellog Institute of International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The main headquarters is the V-Dem Institute in the Dept. of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. They use 429 indicators, evaluated by 3,000 international experts. This year, they have included 21 on Civic and Academic space.
92 countries are now autocracies, which now contain 54% of the global population.
Academic Freedom has declined 13% in autocratizing countries, and the right to peaceful assembly has declined 14% in those countries.
We include a table of democratic factor ratings for countries of current political and pandemic interest to the United States, by my outlook. In the decade long comparison with 2009, when President Obama took office, the US was rated at 86% or 0.86. It has now decreased to 70% in 2019, and is probably still decreasing.
The indexes are:
LDI: Liberal Democratic Index; and the rankings are based on this index;
EDI: Electoral Democracy Index;
LCI: Liberal Component Index;
ECI: Egalitarian Component Index;
PCI: Participatory Component Index;
DCI: Deliberative Component Index.
The ranking of countries is based on the Liberal Democratic Index.
| Rank | Country | LDI | EDI | LCI | ECI | PCI | DCI |
| 36 | USA | 0.70 | 0.80 | 0.88 | 0.67 | 0..66 | 0.67 |
| 21 | Canada | 0.78 | 0.87 | 0.89 | 0.91 | 0.65 | 0.93 |
| 68 | Mexico | 0.49 | 0.71 | 0.65 | 0.55 | 0.53 | 0.56 |
| 60 | Brazil | 0.51 | 0.67 | 0.73 | 0.41 | 0.58 | 0.64 |
| 13 | U.K. | 0.79 | 0.86 | 0.92 | 0.82 | 0.67 | 0.85 |
| 20 | Germany | 0.78 | 0.83 | 0.95 | 0.94 | 0.65 | 0.95 |
| 49 | Israel | 0.57 | 0.67 | 0.85 | 0.80 | 0.58 | 0.80 |
| 90 | India | 0.36 | 0.51 | 0.65 | 0.49 | 0.52 | 0.38 |
| 108 | Lebanon | 0.29 | 0.47 | 0.55 | 0.48 | 0.51 | 0.61 |
| 141 | Iran | 0.14 | 0.22 | 0.41 | 0.53 | 0.11 | 0.45 |
| 150 | Belarus | 0.12 | 0.26 | 0.27 | 0.81 | 0.23 | 0.21 |
| 153 | Turkey | 0.10 | 0.29 | 0.21 | 0.43 | 0.37 | 0.28 |
| 156 | Russia | 0.10 | 0.25 | 0.23 | 0.61 | 0.44 | 0.32 |
| 158 | UAE | 0.09 | 0.10 | 0.30 | 0.49 | 0.11 | 0.42 |
| 159 | Cuba | 0.09 | 0.20 | 0.27 | 0.85 | 0.44 | 0.31 |
| 174 | China | 0.05 | 0.08 | 0.17 | 0.34 | 0.16 | 0.59 |
| 175 | Syria | 0.04 | 0.15 | 0.11 | 0.21 | 0.20 | 0.04 |
| 177 | Saudi A. | 0.04 | 0.02 | 0.16 | 0.42 | 0.08 | 0.21 |
| 178 | N. Korea | 0.01 | 0.10 | 0.03 | 0.34 | 0.05 | 0.02 |
The 68% standard deviation of the ratings are a few percent, except for the DCI, where it is about 0.63.
The last ten countries listed are disturbingly much lower than we normally perceive, except for North Korea. There is only one country below N. Korea, and it is Eritrea.
India under Modi has decreased in the Liberal Democracy Index from 55% in 2009 to 36% now. Under Bolsonaro, Brazil has decreased from 76% in 2009 to 51% now. Turkey under Erdogan has decreased from 46% in 2009 to 10% now.
Update: August 10. In Belarus, Lukashenko claims that he won the election by 80%, but there are opposition demonstrations. Lukashenko has ruled Belarus for 26 years, since 1994. He is backed by Russia.
Update: August 15. The UAE, United Arab Emirates, is a country of seven emirates or constitutional monarchies. They just established diplomatic relations with Israel.
A previous article which I wrote on the 2019 report showed graphically the progress of Democracy since 1900.
