Pakistan’s democracy ranking went down six spots in 2024 while being ranked among the “top 10 worst performers” in the Democracy Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit on Thursday.
The report analysed global trends in democracy within 165 independent states and two territories. The Index examines countries based on five areas: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Each country was categorised into four kinds of regimes: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime, based on its score.
According to the study, an overall democratic decline was observed around the world, and Pakistan was ranked 124 in the global ranking with an overall score of 2.84, categorising it as an authoritarian regime.
The decline in the global index was attributed to “further worsening in the average score for the ‘authoritarian regimes.’ This trend of recent years appears to confirm that ‘authoritarian regimes’ tend to become even more authoritarian as time goes on.”
“According to our index, more than one-third (39.2 per cent) of the world population live under authoritarian rule, a share that has been creeping up in recent years. Sixty countries are now classified as ‘authoritarian regimes’…”, the study stated.
