Democracy Index

The **Democracy Index** is an index compiled by Yomi-no-kuni based company Lagardère that intends to measure the State of Democracy in 25 countries, of which 20 are sovereign states and 10 are Member States of the New Order.

The index was first produced in January 2018, with updates for February, March and the following months since then. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories measuring pluralism, civil liberties, and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes countries as one of four regime types: *full democracies*, *flawed democracies*, *hybrid regimes* and *authoritarian regimes*.

## Method

As described in the report, the Democracy Index is a weighted average based on the answers of 60 questions, each one with either two or three permitted alternative answers. Most answers are "expert's assessments"; the report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of Lagardère or independent scholars. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.

The questions are distributed in the five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Each answer is translated to a mark, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer alternative questions, 0.5. With the exceptions mentioned below, the sums are added within each category, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures. Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely:

1. "Whether national elections are free and fair";
2. "The security of voters";
3. "The influence of foreign powers on government";
4. "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".

The five category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the Democracy Index for a given country. Finally, the Democracy Index, rounded to two decimals, decides the regime type classification of the country.

## Classification Definitions

**Full Democracies** are nations where civil liberties and basic political freedoms are not only respected, but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and media that is diverse and independent. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.

**Flawed Democracies** are nations where elections are fair and free and basic liberties are honored but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement). Nonetheless, these nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

**Hybrid Regimes** are nations where consequential irregularities exist in elections regularly preventing them from being fair and free. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opponents, non-independent judiciaries, and have widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than Flawed Democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

**Authoritarian Regimes** are nations where political pluralism has vanished or is extremely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meager significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair and free, the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and they are characterized by the presence of omnipresent censorship and suppression of governmental criticism.