Armenia Has Progressed in 2022 Democracy Index

LONDON — Armenia has climbed seven positions to rank 82ns in the 2022 Democracy Index published by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The country is classified as “hybrid regime.”

Armenian’s neighbors Georgia and Azerbaijan are ranked 90th and 134th, respectively, Turkey is 103rd, Iran is placed 154th.

A total of 16 countries in Eastern Europe improve their score in the Democracy Index in 2022, with Montenegro and Albania registering the biggest improvements. Six countries suffer a deterioration in their score, with Russia facing the largest decline (the largest of any country in the index in 2022). There are still no “full democracies’’ in the region: of the 28 countries, there are 16 “flawed democracies’’ (comprising EU eastern member states and most of the western Balkans), four “hybrid regimes” (Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine), and eight “authoritarian regimes” (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia and all of the Central Asian Commonwealth of Independent States member nations).

The Democracy Index, which began in 2006, provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide in 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, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Based on its scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then classified as one of four types of regime: “full democracy”, “flawed democracy”, “hybrid regime” or “authoritarian regime.”

The world’s average democracy score improved slightly from the last year’s ranking, as the easing of Covid restrictions increased the score in many countries. However, more than a third of the world’s population still lives in countries considered authoritarian, while only 8% live in a full democracy.