The 2022 version of the Economist’s Democracy Index is out, and I am surprised to find that the UK remains classed as a Democracy and maintains its position as 18th in the World. I last looked at this in 2018 and wrote quite a long article, being surprised at how few Democracies are defined as such by the Economist and how, if the US was classed as a flawed democracy, the UK was not.
I remind myself that, I think Democracy is,
Government by consent expressed through free and fair elections and under the rule of law without favour.
The Economist’s index measures over five classifications and sixty questions. The basic methodology and the questions are described at The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index of democracy by Laza Kekic 2007. The five classifications are Elections (with 12 questions), Government (14), Participation (9), Culture (8) and Human Rights (16). In 2018,
I worked through the 60 questions and in 2018, scored the UK, as a “flawed democracy”; this time I make it a “hybrid democracy” which is worse, primary due to a dramatic 33% fall in the category political culture and over 20% falls in the categories on Government, and Civil Liberties, albeit with a 20%+ improvement in Participation. The methodology categorises societies as a democracy, a flawed democracy, a hybrid democracy or an authoritarian…
