Measuring Democratic Health
How organizations measure democracy, what indices like V-Dem and Freedom House actually track, and the limitations of reducing democracy to a number.
The Major Democracy Indices
Several organizations produce annual assessments of democratic health worldwide. Freedom House rates countries as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free based on political rights and civil liberties. Its annual Freedom in the World report has been published since 1973 and is the most widely cited democracy index.
V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), based at the University of Gothenburg, provides the most granular measurement, scoring countries on over 470 indicators grouped into categories like electoral democracy, liberal democracy, participatory democracy, deliberative democracy, and egalitarian democracy. The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index classifies countries as full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, or authoritarian regimes based on electoral process, government functioning, participation, political culture, and civil liberties.