Economist Democracy Index: Iran at the Bottom of the Rankings
The Economist Intelligence Unit released a report on Thursday, February 11, assessing the state of democracy worldwide and ranked Iran alongside Yemen and Libya at position 154.
The report was prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis division of the Economist Group, a sister company of the British publication The Economist.
According to the report, only Afghanistan, Myanmar, North Korea, Congo, Central Africa, Syria, Turkmenistan, Chad, Laos, Equatorial Guinea, and Tajikistan have worse conditions than Iran.
In its rankings, the Economist Intelligence Unit examined various factors such as electoral processes and pluralism, government performance, participation and political culture, as well as civil liberties, with scores ranging from zero to 10.
Iran’s democracy index last year was 1.95, the lowest figure for Iran since 2010. Afghanistan scored 0.32 at the bottom of the table, while Norway topped the rankings with 9.75.
Iran’s democracy index and position in the Economist Intelligence Unit rankings have declined at an accelerating pace since 2018. In the Middle East, Israel has the best index while Syria and then Iran have the worst. All Persian Gulf Arab countries have better conditions than Iran, and the report states that some of them, such as Qatar, have even made progress in terms of democracy.
Iran’s score was based on several components. In Iran, the electoral processes and pluralism index scored zero, government performance scored 2.5, political participation 3.89, cultural participation 1.88, and finally civil liberties 1.47.
In recent years, numerous reports have been published about widespread suppression of civil protests in Iran, such as the November 2019 protests in which, according to Reuters, 1,500 protesters were killed by gunfire from security and law enforcement forces.
On the other hand, in a “highly classified” document that Radio Farda published on February 2 from a meeting of the Qods Force headquarters, Mohammadi from the social affairs deputy of the Spaah Intelligence Organization, who was present at the meeting, said: “A survey was conducted in society showing that the state of society is in a state of subsurface explosion.”
He added: “Social grievances over the past year have increased by approximately 300 percent,” and protests in Iran have focused on “inflation, salary arrears, social disorder, and water.”
Global Democracy Indicators in Decline
The Economist Intelligence Unit report states: 45.7 percent of the world’s population lives in systems with some level of democracy, while in 2020 this figure was 49.4 percent; a fact that shows democracy globally has declined and the democracy index has witnessed the largest decline since 2010.
Increasing support for authoritarian and totalitarian systems along with the spread of coronavirus are factors in the decline of the democracy index globally.
Even among European countries such as Spain and Britain, the democracy index has declined. Only 6.4 percent of the world’s population lives in fully democratic systems. Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and Denmark have the best democracy conditions in the world, with a total of 21 countries having democratic systems.
More than one-third of the world’s population is under the control of totalitarian systems, and the rest live in hybrid systems.
The report further states that China, despite economic progress and wealth accumulation, has made no progress in terms of democracy and is classified among authoritarian countries and has even declined.
In recent years, numerous reports have been published about increased social surveillance, treatment of civil and political activists, opponents, and minorities such as Muslim Uyghur Turks in China.
Source: Radio Farda
