The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) degraded Pakistan to a “authoritarian regime” in its Democracy Index 2023 report, marking the worst decline of any nation in the “Australia and Asia” region.
An overview of 165 independent states and two territories’ democratic conditions may be found in the EIU Democracy Index.
Out of the 28 countries in the region that are part of the index, only eight saw an improvement in their score, while 15 saw a fall.
Pakistan dropped 11 spots to 118th place in the world ranking, with its Democracy Index score dropping from 0.88 to 3.25.
The average score for Asia and Australasia has declined to its lowest point since the first Democracy Index in 2006. Download our free report to find out why: https://t.co/2eitmQsAUI pic.twitter.com/CmzW6SXd3I
— Economist Intelligence: EIU (@TheEIU) February 16, 2024
According to the EIU assessment, the nation’s judiciary’s independence has been drastically reduced in addition to government dysfunction and intervention in elections.
The only other Asian nation to be demoted is Pakistan, which is now categorized as a “authoritarian regime” instead of a “hybrid regime.”
Since 2008, Pakistan’s rating on the democracy index has stayed just over 4. The country’s score fell to 3.25 in 2023 for the first time under the coalition administration, which was mostly made up of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), and Jamait Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F).
It’s interesting to note that Pakistan’s 2023 score on the democracy index is worse than it was in 2006 (3.92), the year that military dictator Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf presided over the country.
Pakistan’s downgrade was seen as “disappointing” by Ahmed Bilal Mehboob of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat).
“This is a very disappointing development as Pakistan has scored the lowest since 2017 and our category has also been downgraded from a hybrid regime’ to an authoritarian regime,” he stated.
In addition, he exhorted everyone involved to “undertake serious soul searching at this state of affairs”.
Global democratic standards have declined
According to the EIU, the rise of conflicts, authoritarian regimes, and a decline in public confidence in major political parties all contributed to a global decline in democratic norms in 2023.
In 2023, there were 74 nations recognized as democracies, a rise of two over the previous year. But according to the report, the year was not good for democracy based on other measures.
Western Europe is the highest-scoring region in EIU’s Democracy Index 2023. Find out why in our free report: https://t.co/j2zRPVqFB8 pic.twitter.com/18sKHDsnJk
— Economist Intelligence: EIU (@TheEIU) February 15, 2024
The average index score for the world dropped from 5.29 in 2022 to 5.23 in 2023. This represents a new low since the index’s launch in 2006 and is consistent with a current trend of regression and stagnation. The majority of the deterioration was seen in the non-democratic states categorized as “authoritarian regimes” and “hybrid regimes.”
The average score for “authoritarian regimes” decreased by 0.12 points while the average score for “hybrid regimes” decreased by 0.07 points from 2022 and 2023. In contrast, the average score of “full democracies” and “flawed democracies” decreased by 0.01 and 0.03 points, respectively, throughout the course of the year.
Approximately half of the world’s population (45.4%) resides in a democracy of some kind, according to the EIU’s measure of democracy. From 8.9% in 2015, just 7.8% of people live in a “full democracy.”
39.4% of people on the planet live under authoritarian control, a percentage that has been steadily rising in recent years.
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