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Freedom in the world 2015

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Discarding Democracy: A Return to the Iron Fist

by Arch Puddington, Vice President for Research

In a year marked by an explosion of terrorist violence, autocrats’ use of more brutal tactics, and Russia’s invasion and annexation of a neighboring country’s territory, the state of freedom in 2014 worsened significantly in nearly every part of the world.

For the ninth consecutive year, Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s annual report on the condition of global political rights and civil liberties, showed an overall decline. Indeed, acceptance of democracy as the world’s dominant form of government—and of an international system built on democratic ideals—is under greater threat than at any point in the last 25 years.

Even after such a long period of mounting pressure on democracy, developments in 2014 were exceptionally grim. The report’s findings show that nearly twice as many countries suffered declines as registered gains, 61 to 33, with the number of gains hitting its lowest point since the nine-year erosion began.

This pattern held true across geographical regions, with more declines than gains in the Middle East and North Africa, Eurasia, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and an even split in Asia-Pacific. Syria, a dictatorship mired in civil war and ethnic division and facing uncontrolled terrorism, received the lowest

Freedom in the World country score in over a decade.

The lack of democratic gains around the world was conspicuous. The one notable exception was Tunisia, which became the first Arab country to achieve the status of Free since Lebanon was gripped by civil war 40 years ago.

By contrast, a troubling number of large, economically powerful, or regionally influential countries moved backward: Russia, Venezuela, Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Nigeria, Kenya, and Azerbaijan. Hungary, a European Union member state, also saw a sharp slide in its democratic standards as part of a process that began in 2010.

There were also net declines across five of the seven categories of democratic indicators assessed by the report. Continuing a recent trend, the worst reversals affected freedom of expression, civil society, and the rule of law. In a new and disquieting development, a number of countries lost ground due to state surveillance, restrictions on internet communications, and curbs on personal autonomy—including the freedom to make decisions about education and employment and the ability to travel freely.

A more explicit rejection of democratic standards

Just as disturbing as the statistical decline was the open disdain for democratic standards that colored the words and actions of autocratic governments during the year. Until recently, most authoritarian regimes claimed to respect international agreements and paid lip service to the norms of competitive elections and human rights. They now increasingly flout democratic values, argue for the superiority of what amounts to one-party rule, and seek to throw off the constraints of fundamental diplomatic principles.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the outright seizure and formal annexation of Crimea, is the prime example of this phenomenon. The Russian intervention was in direct violation of an international agreement that had guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity. President Vladimir Putin made his contempt for the values of liberal democracy unmistakably clear. He and his aides equated raw propaganda with legitimate journalism, treated human rights activists as enemies of the state, and denounced the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community as moral degenerates.

In Egypt, the rise of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been accompanied by a relentless campaign to roll back the gains of the Arab Spring. In an unprecedented trampling of the rule of law, Egyptian courts sentenced 1,300 political detainees to death in a series of drumhead trials that lacked the most basic elements of due process. Under Sisi, a once-vibrant media sector has been bent into submission, human rights organizations suppressed to the point that they can no longer operate, foreign scholars barred, and domestic critics (both secular and Islamist) arrested  or forced into exile. As the year drew to a close, a court dismissed charges against former president Hosni Mubarak for the murder of demonstrators in 2011, a depressing symbol of the country’s undisguised return to autocratic rule.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan consolidated power during the year and waged an increasingly aggressive campaign against democratic pluralism. He openly demanded that media owners censor coverage or fire critical journalists, told the Constitutional Court he does not respect its rulings, threatened reporters (and rebuked women journalists), and ordered radical, even bizarre changes to the school curriculum. Having risen from the premiership to the presidency in August, he formed a “shadow cabinet” that allows him to run the country from the presidential palace, circumventing constitutional rules and the ministries of his own party’s government.

In China, President Xi Jinping continued to centralize authority and maintain hands-on involvement in policy areas ranging from domestic security to internet management to ethnic relations, emerging as the  most powerful Chinese Communist Party leader since Deng Xiaoping. He continued to bolster China’s  sweeping maritime territorial claims with armed force and personnel, and while his aggressive anticorruption campaign reached the highest echelons of the party, culminating in the arrest of former security  czar Zhou Yongkang, it remained selective and ignored the principles of due process. Moreover, the campaign has been compromised by an intensified crackdown on grassroots anticorruption activists and other elements of civil society, including a series of politically motivated convictions. The government also intensified its persecution of the Uighur community, imposing layers of restriction on Uighurs’ ability to observe their Muslim faith and sentencing activists and journalists to long prison terms.

The Communist authorities also tightened China’s sophisticated system of internet control, taking steps such as the shuttering of dozens of accounts on the popular WeChat messaging service that had been used to disseminate news. And despite official rhetoric about improving the rule of law, an array of extralegal forms of detention for political and religious dissidents continued to proliferate.

The effects and causes of terrorism

In a variety of ways, lack of democratic governance creates an enabling environment for terrorism, and the problem rapidly metastasized as a threat to human life and human freedom during 2014. In a wide swath of the globe stretching from West Africa through the Middle East to South Asia, radical jihadist forces plagued local governments and populations. Their impact on countries like Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria was devastating, as they massacred security forces and civilians alike, took foreigners hostage, and killed or enslaved religious minorities, including Muslims whom they did not recognize as such. Women were particular targets: Young women and teenage girls were seized as war prizes, schoolgirls were kidnapped and raped, women educators and health workers were assassinated, and women suffered disproportionately in refugee camps. As horror  followed horror, the year ended with a slaughter of more than 130 schoolchildren by the Pakistani Taliban.

The spike in terrorist violence laid bare widespread corruption, poor governance, and counterproductive security strategies in a number of countries with weak or nonexistent democratic institutions. The Syrian regime had opened the door to the growth of the Islamic State and other extremist movements by brutally repressing first peaceful protesters and the political opposition, then the various rebel groups that rose up to defend them. The Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki also smoothed the militants’path by persecuting opposition leaders, rebuking peaceful Sunni protests, and fostering corruption and cronyism in the security forces. More recently, the Sisi government in Egypt has made the same mistake in its remorseless drive to eliminate the Muslim Brotherhood, indirectly fueling an armed insurgency and contributing to the formation of an Islamic State affiliate in the country.

In Nigeria, neither the government nor the military has proved capable of dealing effectively with Boko Haram, which operates with impunity in parts of the country’s north. While the military has for decades played a large role in Nigerian political life, it has proved poorly equipped, badly trained, hollowed out by graft, and prone to scattershot tactics that fail to distinguish between terrorists and civilians. In Pakistan, the military and intelligence services have a long history of colluding with certain extremist groups,  including some that are responsible for mass killings of civilians. When they do move against militant bastions, they too often resort to indiscriminate violence and fail to follow up with improved governance.

Many governments have exploited the escalation of terrorism as a justification for new and essentially unrelated repressive measures. While a vigorous debate over how democracies should respond to terrorism at home and abroad is under way in Europe, Australia, and North America, leaders elsewhere are citing the threat as they silence dissidents, shutter critical media, and eliminate civil society groups.

Thus the regime of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has imprisoned opposition political figures as terrorists, Kenyan authorities have deregistered hundreds of nongovernmental organizations and unleashed security agencies while pursuing links to Somali militants, and China has invoked terrorism to support harsh prison sentences against nonviolent Uighur activists and internet users, including a life sentence for well-known Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti.

A return to cruder authoritarian methods

The exploitation of the terrorism threat is just one aspect of a general trend in which repressive regimes are returning to blunt, retrograde tactics in their ongoing effort to preserve political control. In recent decades, autocrats had favored more “modern,” nuanced methods that aimed to protect de facto monopolies on power while maintaining a veneer of democratic pluralism and avoiding practices associated with the totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships of the 20th century.

Over the past year, however, there were signs that authoritarian regimes were beginning to abandon the quasi-democratic camouflage that allowed them to survive and prosper in the post–Cold War world.

Again, the most blatant example is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, whose official justifications included ethnic nationalist, irredentist claims and which quickly drew comparisons to the land grabs of Hitler or Stalin.

The move exposed Moscow as a committed enemy of European peace and democratization rather than a would-be strategic partner. China’s government responded to public discontent with campaigns reminiscent of the Mao era, including televised confessions that have gained prominence under Xi Jinping. The Chinese authorities are also resorting to criminal and administrative detention to restrict activists instead of softer tactics like house arrest or informal interrogations. Both China and Russia have made use of one of the Cold War’s most chilling instruments, the placement of dissidents in psychiatric hospitals.

In Venezuela and Azerbaijan, the ranks of political prisoners steadily increased in 2014, as leading officials railed against foreign conspiracies aimed at fomenting revolution. Meanwhile, rulers in Egypt, Bahrain, and other Middle Eastern countries, which just a decade ago felt obliged to move toward competitive elections, now resort to violent police tactics, sham trials, and severe sentences as they seek to annihilate political opposition. And whereas the most successful authoritarian regimes previously tolerated a modest opposition press, some civil society activity, and a comparatively vibrant internet environment, they are now reducing or closing these remaining spaces for dissent and debate.

The return to older authoritarian practices has  included increased military involvement in governance and political affairs. In Thailand, the military leaders responsible for the removal of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her elected government made clear that a return to democratic rule will not take place in the foreseeable future. The military commandeered the political transition after the ouster of the president in Burkina Faso, and armed forces continued to play a major role in a number of other African states, including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In Egypt, the Sisi government has cemented the military’s position as the leading force in society. A similar phenomenon has emerged in Venezuela, where the armed forces are involved in the economy, social programs, and internal security, and are thought to play a critical part in drug trafficking and other criminal ventures.

Notable developments in 2014

In addition to those described above, five major phenomena stood out during the year:

Humanitarian crises rooted in undemocratic governance: In Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, millions of refugees were forced into squalid camps, risked their lives in overcrowded boats, or found tenuous shelter on the margins of foreign societies. Authoritarian misrule was a primary cause of these humanitarian crises. In Syria, the civil war was originally sparked by the regime’s attacks on demonstrators who were protesting the torture of students accused of antigovernment graffiti. In South Sudan, a political dispute between the president and his former vice president—in the context of an interim constitution that gives sweeping powers to   the executive—led to fighting within the army that developed into full-scale civil war. The combatants have targeted civilians, who are also facing acute food shortages and massive internal displacement. While the conflict in Ukraine has not reached the same level, authoritarian Russia’s invasion has created a crisis like none seen in Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The aggression was precipitated in part by a confrontation between the Ukrainian people and their increasingly authoritarian president, following decades of corrupt Ukrainian administrations.

Tunisia’s exceptional success story: In 2014, Tunisia took its place among the Free countries of the world. This is remarkable not just because it was ranked Not Free only five years ago, with scores that placed it among some of the most repressive regimes in  the world, but also because Tunisia is so far the only successful case among the many Arab countries that exhibited some political opening in the 2011 Arab Spring. The improvements that pushed it into the Free category included a progressive constitution adopted in January 2014 and well-regarded elections for parliament and president later in the year. As the only full-fledged Arab democracy, Tunisia can set a strong positive example for the region and for all countries that still struggle under authoritarian rule.

The decline of internet freedom: Restrictions on internet freedom have long been less severe than those imposed on traditional media, but the gap is closing as governments crack down on online activity. Censorship and surveillance, repressive new laws, criminal penalties, and arrests of users have been on the rise in numerous settings. For example, officials in Ecuador increased online monitoring in 2014, hiring firms to remove content deemed unfavorable to the government from sites like YouTube and invoking the 2013 communications law to prosecute social media users who were critical of the president. The Rwandan government stepped up use of a new law that allows security officials to monitor online communications, and surveillance appears to have increased in practice. Such restrictions affect Free countries as well. After the Sewol ferry accident in South Korea in April and related criticism and rumors surrounding the president, the government began routine monitoring and censorship of online discussions. Israel also featured a stricter environment for discussion on social media this year, especially regarding controversial views on the situation in the Gaza Strip.

Personal autonomy under pressure: In addition to continued declines in freedom of expression and civil society rights, there were notable declines in freedom of movement during 2014. In some cases, a tightening of government control prevented ordinary people  from moving within their own country or traveling abroad. Restrictions imposed by the authoritarian governments of Egypt and Russia were politically motivated. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, authorities limited movement due to the Ebola crisis, at times using measures beyond those necessary to control the disease’s spread. The most extreme example was a 10-day quarantine on the impoverished neighborhood of West Point in Monrovia, Liberia, which according to many experts actually increased the risk of contagion. In Libya, the worsening civil war hampered internal movement. In El Salvador and Honduras, worsening gang-related violence and lawlessness limited where people could safely travel.

Overlooked autocrats: While some of the world’s worst dictatorships regularly made headlines, others continued to fly below the radar. Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev won a landslide reelection victory against an opposition that was crippled by arrests and legal constraints, and the regime stepped up its jailing of human rights activists, journalists, and other perceived enemies. Despite year after year of declines in political rights and civil liberties, however, Azerbaijan has avoided the democratic world’s opprobrium due to its energy wealth and cooperation on security matters.

Vietnam is also an attractive destination for foreign investment, and the United States and its allies gave the country special attention in 2014 as the underdog facing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. But like China, Vietnam remains an entrenched one-party state, and the regime imposed harsher penalties for free speech online, arrested protesters, and continued to ban work by human rights organizations. Ethiopia is held up as a model for development in Africa, and is one of the world’s largest recipients of foreign assistance. But in 2014 its security forces opened fire on protesters, carried out large-scale arrests of bloggers and other journalists as well as members of the political opposition, and evicted communities from their land to make way for opaque development projects. Finally, while several countries in the Middle East—most notably oil-rich Saudi Arabia—receive special treatment from the United States and others, the United Arab Emirates stands out for how little international attention is paid to its systematic denial of rights for foreign workers, who make up the vast majority of the population; its enforcement of one of the most restrictive press laws in the Arab world; and its dynastic political system, which leaves no space for opposition.

Global findings

The number of countries designated by Freedom in the World as Free in 2014 stood at 89, representing 46 percent of the world’s 195 polities and nearly 2.9 billion people—or 40 percent of the global population. The number of Free countries increased by one from the previous year’s report.

The number of countries qualifying as Partly Free stood at 55, or 28 percent of all countries assessed, and they were home to just over 1.7 billion people, or 24 percent of the world’s total. The number of Partly Free countries decreased by four from the previous year.

A total of 51 countries were deemed Not Free, representing 26 percent of the world’s polities. The number of people living under Not Free conditions stood at 2.6 billion people, or 36 percent of the global population, though it is important to note that more than half of this number lives in just one country: China. The number of Not Free countries increased by three from 2013.

The number of electoral democracies stood at 125, three more than in 2013. Five countries achieved electoral democracy status: Fiji, Kosovo, Madagascar, the Maldives, and the Solomon Islands. Two countries, Libya and Thailand, lost their designation as electoral democracies.

Tunisia rose from Partly Free to Free, while Guinea- Bissau improved from Not Free to Partly Free. Four countries fell from Partly Free to Not Free: Burundi, Libya, Thailand, and Uganda.

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Conclusion: The system of choice

Along with the emergence of popular movements for democratic change, the past year brought clear evidence of crisis in major undemocratic states.

For some time now, the momentum of world politics has favored democracy’s adversaries. While the dramatic gains of the late 20th century have not been erased, the institutions meant to ensure fair elections, a combative press, checks on state power, and probity in government and commerce are showing wear and tear in the new or revived democracies of Central Europe, Latin America, and Asia. In the Middle East, the potential of the Arab Spring has given way to the chaos and carnage that prevail in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, and to a ruthless dictatorship in Egypt. In Africa, the promise of freedom survives, but the dominant trend is one of corruption, internal conflict, terrorism, and ugly campaigns against the

LGBT community. Even in the United States, the year’s headlines featured racial strife, a renewed argument over counterterrorism tactics, and political gridlock.

There are, some might say, few compelling advertisements today for the benefits of democratic government, and few signs that the retreat of open political systems can be reversed. However, several major events during 2014 suggest that this gloomy assessment is off the mark.

In Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people rose up to defy a kleptocratic leadership that offered the country a political and economic dead end. Given the choice between a future course patterned on Russian authoritarianism and a path toward Europe and its democratic standards, the majority did not hesitate in choosing the option of freedom, even with its uncertainties. The Kremlin has imposed a terrible  punishment for this decision, but so far Ukrainians have not wavered in their defiance.

In Hong Kong, the student-led Umbrella Movement emerged after the Communist leadership in Beijing announced that contrary to previous commitments and public expectations, elections for chief executive would require candidates to be nominated by a pro- Beijing committee, making universal suffrage a hollow exercise. The controversy epitomized both Beijing’s refusal to countenance the basic tenets of democracy and the ultimate weakness of its legitimacy among  the public. It also stood as a powerful reminder that while China’s model of state-driven growth combined with strict political control is attractive to elites in authoritarian settings (and to some in democracies as well), ordinary people, and especially the young, find China’s rejection of freedom profoundly unappealing. Notably, the people of Taiwan, through student protests and local election results during the year, strongly voiced their preference for a future in which popular sovereignty prevails.

Along with the emergence of popular movements for democratic change, the past year brought clear evidence of crisis in major undemocratic states.

In Venezuela, a toxic mixture of corruption, misrule, and oil-price declines brought shortages, rampant inflation, and enhanced repression. Once touted as a possible template for leftist-populist governments across Latin America, the system set in place by the late Hugo Chávez now stands as a textbook case of political and economic dysfunction.

Plummeting oil prices also revealed the weaknesses of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. But Russia’s problems run deeper than a vulnerability to the energy market.

Corruption, cronyism, and the absence of the rule of law have discouraged investment and economic diversification. Pervasive propaganda has virtually eliminated critical voices from policy debates. And the absence of checks on presidential power has led to disastrous foreign adventures and diplomatic blunders.

Tolerating risk

These and other examples from the year should remind the world how much democracy matters. Antidemocratic practices lead to civil war and humanitarian crisis. They facilitate the growth of terrorist movements, whose effects inevitably spread beyond national borders. Corruption and poor governance fuel economic instability, which can also have regional or even global consequences.

Will the world’s established democracies come to recognize that the global assault on free institutions poses a threat to their own national interests? The sanctions placed on Russia by the United States, Europe, and others are a welcome development. They send a message that invading one’s neighbor will have repercussions. The same might be said for the coalition against the Islamic State.

But such firm messages have been lacking when despotic regimes intimidate, jail, or kill their own people. President Sisi is treated as a strong ruler and a partner in the fight against terrorism despite his enforcement of a level of repression not seen in Egypt in decades. The leaders of democracies compete for China’s favor even as Beijing steps up internal controls and pushes its expansive territorial claims. In Latin America, Brazil and other democracies respond to Venezuela’s deterioration with silence. In Asia, major democracies like India and Indonesia have declined to use their influence to encourage a return to civilian rule in Thailand.

In short, democracies often seem determined to wait for authoritarian misrule to blossom into international catastrophe before they take remedial action. This is unfortunate, as even the most powerful repressive regimes have shown that they are susceptible to pressures from their own people and from the  outside as well. And ordinary citizens have exhibited a willingness to challenge rulers with established histories of bloodletting in the service of political control. Democracies face many problems of their own, but their biggest mistake would be to accept the proposition that they are impotent in the face of strongmen for whom bullying and lies are the fundamental currencies of political exchange. This is clearly not the case, even in such difficult times.

INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES

PR and CL stand for political rights and civil liberties, respectively; 1 represents the most free and 7 the least free rating. The symbol * indicates a country’s status as an electoral democracy.  And ▲ ▼ up or down indicates an improvement or decline in ratings or status since the last survey.

CountryFreedom StatusPRCL
AfghanistanNot Free66”
Albania*Partly Free33
AlgeriaNot Free65
Andorra*Free11
AngolaNot Free65
Antigua and Barbuda*Free22
Argentina*Free22
ArmeniaPartly Free54
Australia*Free11
Austria*Free11
AzerbaijanNot Free66”
Bahamas*Free11
BahrainNot Free7 ▼6
Bangladesh*Partly Free4 ▼4
Barbados*Free11
BelarusNot Free76
Belgium*Free11
Belize*Free12
Benin*Free22
Bhutan*Partly Free34
Bolivia*Partly Free33
Bosnia and Herzegovina*Partly Free4 ▼3
Botswana*Free32
Brazil*Free22
BruneiNot Free65
Bulgaria*Free22
Burkina FasoPartly Free6 ▼3
BurundiNot Free ▼6 ▼5
CambodiaNot Free65
CameroonNot Free66
Canada*Free11
Cape Verde*Free11
Central African RepublicNot Free77
ChadNot Free76
Chile*Free11
ChinaNot Free76
Colombia*Partly Free34
Comoros*Partly Free34
Congo (Brazzaville)Not Free65
Congo (Kinshasa)Not Free66
Costa Rica*Free11
Côte d’IvoirePartly Free54
Croatia*Free12
CubaNot Free76
Cyprus*Free11
Czech Republic*Free11
Denmark*Free11
DjiboutiNot Free65
Dominica*Free11
Dominican Republic*Free23
East Timor*Partly Free33 ▲
Ecuador*Partly Free33”
EgyptNot Free65”
El Salvador*Free23
Equatorial GuineaNot Free77
EritreaNot Free77
Estonia*Free11
EthiopiaNot Free66
Fiji*Partly Free3 ▲4
Finland*Free11
France*Free11
GabonNot Free65
The GambiaNot Free66”
Georgia*Partly Free33
Germany*Free11
Ghana*Free12
Greece*Free22
Grenada*Free12
Guatemala*Partly Free34
GuineaPartly Free55
Guinea-BissauPartly Free ▲5 ▲5
Guyana*Free23
HaitiPartly Free5 ▼5
Honduras*Partly Free44
Hungary*Free2 ▼2
Iceland*Free11
India*Free23
Indonesia*Partly Free24
IranNot Free66
IraqNot Free6 ▼6
Ireland*Free11
Israel*Free12
Italy*Free11
Jamaica*Free23
Japan*Free11
JordanNot Free65
KazakhstanNot Free65
Kenya*Partly Free44
Kiribati*Free11
Kosovo*Partly Free4 ▲4
KuwaitPartly Free55
KyrgyzstanPartly Free55”
LaosNot Free76
Latvia*Free22
LebanonPartly Free54”
Lesotho*Free23”
Liberia*Partly Free34”
LibyaNot Free ▼6 ▼6 ▼
Liechtenstein*Free11
Lithuania*Free11
Luxembourg*Free11
Macedonia*Partly Free4 ▼3
Madagascar*Partly Free4 ▲4
Malawi*Partly Free34
MalaysiaPartly Free44”
Maldives*Partly Free44
MaliPartly Free54
Malta*Free11
Marshall Islands*Free11
MauritaniaNot Free65
Mauritius*Free12
Mexico*Partly Free33”
Micronesia*Free11
Moldova*Partly Free33
Monaco*Free21
Mongolia*Free12
Montenegro*Free32
MoroccoPartly Free54
MozambiquePartly Free43
MyanmarNot Free66 ▼
Namibia*Free22
Nauru*Free12 ▼
Nepal*Partly Free44
Netherlands*Free11
New Zealand*Free11
NicaraguaPartly Free43
Niger*Partly Free34
NigeriaPartly Free45 ▼
North KoreaNot Free77
Norway*Free11
OmanNot Free65
Pakistan*Partly Free45
Palau*Free11
Panama*Free22
Papua New Guinea*Partly Free4 ▼3
Paraguay*Partly Free33
Peru*Free23
Philippines*Partly Free33
Poland*Free11
Portugal*Free11
QatarNot Free65
Romania*Free22
RussiaNot Free66 ▼
RwandaNot Free66 ▼
Saint Kitts and Nevis*Free11
Saint Lucia*Free11
Saint Vincent and Grenadines*Free11
Samoa*Free22
San Marino*Free11
São Tomé and Príncipe*Free22
Saudi ArabiaNot Free77
Senegal*Free22
Serbia*Free22
Seychelles*Partly Free33
Sierra Leone*Partly Free33
SingaporePartly Free44
Slovakia*Free11
Slovenia*Free11
Solomon Islands*Partly Free3 ▲3
SomaliaNot Free77
South Africa*Free22
South Korea*Free22”
South SudanNot Free7 ▼6
Spain*Free11
Sri LankaPartly Free55 ▼
SudanNot Free77
Suriname*Free22
SwazilandNot Free75”
Sweden*Free11
Switzerland*Free11
SyriaNot Free77”
Taiwan*Free12
TajikistanNot Free66”
Tanzania*Partly Free33
ThailandNot Free ▼6 ▼5 ▼
TogoPartly Free44
Tonga*Free22
Trinidad and Tobago*Free22
Tunisia*Free ▲1 ▲3
Turkey*Partly Free34”
TurkmenistanNot Free77
Tuvalu*Free11
UgandaNot Free ▼65 ▼
Ukraine*Partly Free3 ▲3
United Arab EmiratesNot Free66
United Kingdom*Free11
United States*Free11
Uruguay*Free11
UzbekistanNot Free77
Vanuatu*Free22
VenezuelaPartly Free55”
VietnamNot Free75
YemenNot Free66”
Zambia*Partly Free34
ZimbabweNot Free56
Related territoriesFreedom StatusPRCL
Hong KongPartly Free52”
Puerto RicoFree12
Disputed TerritoriesFreedom StatusPRCL
AbkhaziaPartly Free45
CrimeaNot Free76
Gaza StripNot Free76
Indian KashmirPartly Free44
Nagorno-KarabakhPartly Free55
Northern CyprusFree22
Pakistani KashmirNot Free65
SomalilandPartly Free45
South OssetiaNot Free76
TibetNot Free77
TransnistriaNot Free66
West BankNot Free65
Western SaharaNot Free77

NOTE: The ratings reflect global events from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2014.

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Democracy Index 2015

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