For most countries, there are few changes from the Survey of 2021, which we recently put up. The 2022 survey includes events through 2021. The 2022 Survey is at V-dem.org. It is a compilation of ratings from 0 to 1 of five indexes. The five indexes are:
EDI, Electoral Democracy Index;
LCI, Liberal Component Index;
ECI, Egalitarian Component Index;
PCI, Participatory Component Index; and
DCI, Deliberative Component Index.
The tables below are based on the LDI: Liberal Democracy Index, which combines the 40 components of the EDI, and the 29 components of the LCI.
In general, 70% of the world’s population, or 5.4 billion people, live in dictatorships. India, with 1.4 billion population, had declined from a democracy to an electoral autocracy. Liberal democracies have declined from 42 countries in 2012 to 34 countries, which only contain 13% or one eighth of the world’s population. Studies have shown that democracies have a 20% higher GDP per capita than autocracies, as well as all of the other benefits.
Thirty-three countries are currently becoming more autocratic, while only 15 are democratizing, containing only 3% of the of the world’s population. In the past year there have been 5 military coups, and one self-coup. Misinformation by governments is increasing. Toxic polarization is increasing in 32 countries. 35 countries suffered deterioration of freedom of expression. Autonomy of electoral management has been undermined in 25 countries in the past 10 years.
We will show their LDI and Rank for the same countries that we examined in the Democracy Index 2021 in a previous article, partly for comparison. The decimal fraction in the Democracy Survey will be multiplied by 10 to make it 0 to 10. (The = on the Index Rank means a tie.)
North and South America
| Country | Index Avg. | Index Rank | Survey LDI | Survey Rank |
| USA | 7.85 | 26 | 7.4 | 29 |
| Canada | 8.87 | 12 | 7.5 | 24 |
| Mexico | 5.57 | 86= | 3.9 | 87 |
| Brazil | 6.86 | 47 | 5.1 | 56 |
| Venezuela | 2.11 | 151 | 0.7 | 161 |
| Nicaragua | 2.69 | 140 | 0.6 | 161 |
| Cuba | 2.59 | 142 | 0.8 | 159 |
In the five categories of the Survey, the US scored (with ranks in parentheses): Electoral Democracy 8.2 (29); Liberal 9.0 (26); Egalitarian 6.5 (76); Participatory 6.6 (26); and Deliberative 7.8 (61). Again, the US LDI was listed as 7.4 (29).
Western Europe
Western European countries Survey LDI range from 7.5 for Austria to the world’s leading countries, Sweden and Denmark at 8.8. That is, except for Greece at 6.7. All of the others are higher than the US at 7.4.
Eastern European
| Countries | Index Avg. | Index Rank | Survey LDI | Survey Rank |
| Russia | 3.24 | 124 | 1.0 | 151 |
| Belarus | 2.41 | 146 | 0.4 | 175 |
| Ukraine | 5.57 | 86= | 3.2 | 99 |
| Estonia | 7.84 | 27 | 8.4 | 6 |
| Latvia | 7.31 | 38 | 7.3 | 30 |
| Lithuania | 7.18 | 38 | 7.4 | 27 |
| Poland | 6.80 | 51 | 4.1 | 80 |
| Romania | 6.43 | 61 | 6.4 | 44 |
| Serbia | 6.36 | 63 | 2.4 | 111 |
| Slovakia | 7.03 | 45 | 7.7 | 22 |
| Hungary | 6.50 | 56= | 3.6 | 91 |
| Czech R. | 7.74 | 29 | 7.1 | 31 |
| Slovenia | 7.54 | 35 | 6.0 | 48 |
| Croatia | 6.50 | 56= | 6.3 | 46 |
| Bulgaria | 6.64 | 53 | 5.5 | 56 |
| Georgia | 5.12 | 91 | 4.9 | 62 |
| Turkey | 4.35 | 103 | 1.1 | 147 |
The LDI for Russia was 1.0 (151), and the five components for Russia are: 2.6 (139); 2.4 (155); 5.4 (110); 4.3 (125); and 3.0 (151).
Asia
| Countries | Index Avg. | Index Rank | Survey LDI | Survey Rank |
| China | 2.21 | 152 | 0.4 | 172 |
| India | 6.91 | 46 | 3.6 | 93 |
| Japan | 8.15 | 17 | 7.4 | 28 |
| Taiwan | 8.99 | 8 | 7.0 | 32 |
| S. Korea | 8.16 | 16 | 7.9 | 17 |
| Vietnam | 2.94 | 131 | 1.3 | 141 |
| HongKong | 5.60 | 84 | 2.0 | 123 |
| N. Korea | 1.08 | 165 | 0.1 | 178 |
| Afghanistan | 0.32 | 167 | 0.2 | 177 |
| Australia | 8.90 | 9= | 8.1 | 14 |
Middle East
| Countries | Index Avg. | Index Rank | Survey LDI | Survey Rank |
| Israel | 7.97 | 28 | 6.5 | 41 |
| Kuwait | 3.91 | 110 | 2.7 | 106 |
| Qatar | 3.65 | 114 | 0.9 | 155 |
| Iraq | 3.51 | 116= | 2.2 | 118 |
| UAE | 2.90 | 134= | 0.8 | 158 |
| Bahrain | 2.42 | 144 | 0.5 | 169 |
| SaudiArabia | 2.08 | 152 | 0.4 | 171 |
| Iran | 1.95 | 154= | 1.2 | 142 |
| Syria | 1.43 | 162= | 0.4 | 174 |
Saudi Arabia has the LDI of 0.4 (171) and the components: 0.2 (179); 1.7 (162); 4.6 (130); 0.7 (177); and 2.5 (154).
Graphs and Plots from the Report
While we see a 50 year decline in Closed Autocracies from 52 to 26, we also see a very disturbing rise in Electoral Autocracies in the last few years from 25 to 44, or plus 19. That corresponds to the sharp drop in Electoral Democracies from 39 to 16, or minus 23.
Each person is 1% of the region’s population. Dark blue is Liberal Democracy, light blue is Electoral Democracy, light red is Electoral Autocracy, and dark red is Closed Autocracy. Western Europe and North America is the best. The Middle East and North Africa is the worst.
