The Economist Democracy Index rates countries on the state of their governing system each year. In the latest edition, corresponding to the year 2024, only 25 countries, representing 6.6% of the world's population, have been rated as "full democracies", Statista reports.  

This category includes all Scandinavian countries, several other European nations as well as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Mauritius, Taiwan, Japan and Latin American countries Uruguay and Costa Rica.

With an overall average score of 5.17 out of 10, the 2024 index points to a "continuing democratic malaise" as just 37 countries improved their score, mostly marginally, while 83 countries registered a decline in their score. According to the index, almost 40% of the world's population live under authoritarian regimes, with another 16% living in so-called hybrid regimes and 38% living in flawed democracies, one of which is the United States, which scored particularly badly in "political culture" due to intense political and cultural polarization.

Globally, the three worst-rated countries are Afghanistan, Myanmar and North Korea, which scored 0.0 for non-existing civil liberties, electoral process and pluralism. At the other end of the scale, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden are ranked as the most democratic countries in the world, with Norway scoring a perfect 10 for electoral process and pluralism, political participation and civil liberties.

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September 15 marks International Day of Democracy - a day dedicated to promoting the principles of democracy and celebrating civic participation. It also provides an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world at a time when "democracy and the rule of law are under assault from disinformation, division, and shrinking civic space," as UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it.

Our infographic, based on classifications from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project analyzed by Our World in Data highlights just how fragile democracy can be. The share of the world population living in either an electoral or liberal democracy was at its highest in 2001, when the figure was at 53.5 percent. Over the past decade, there has been a sharp decline though, driven partly by a downgrade of India, which is now considered an electoral autocracy. Even excluding this effect, the population-weighted level of democracy would be back to 1990, V-Dem notes in its 2025 Democracy Report. By 2024, just 28 percent of the world's population, or 2.3 billion people, lived in electoral or liberal democracies, down from almost 4 billion people in 2016.

You will find more infographics at Statista