The Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index
seeks to measure the health of democracy
in pretty much all the countries around the world.
It breaks this down into five categories.
The electoral process, the functioning of government,
civil liberties, political participation,
and political culture.
The scores range from Norway
which we rate as the most democratic country on Earth
all the way down to North Korea,
a hereditary communist monarchy
which is by far the least.
Although the world has obviously gotten
a lot more democratic
over the past century and the past 30 years
since the end of the Cold War
but since the EIU started measuring it
which was in 2006, things appear to have regressed somewhat.
Today roughly half the world's people live
in some form of democracy
but by our rather strict measurements,
only about 5% live in what we call a full democracy
and a good third or so live in solid authoritarian regimes
with a big portion of that in China.
One of the less gloomy findings
is that political participation seems to be up.
This is probably related
to a widespread feeling in a lot of countries
that democracy's under threat,
that the threats of fake news,
subversion by foreign powers
such as Russia and the rise of authoritarian leaders
from Hungary to Poland
to all kinds of places
means that people can't take democracy for granted anymore
and so, you'll see a lot more people demonstrating
in the streets, getting out to vote and organizing online.
The most improved indicator
was to do with women's participation in politics.
Partly that reflects a genuine improvement
in the status of women
and the increased likelihood
that voters are prepared to vote for them.
Alas it also represents a certain amount
of gaming the system particularly
by authoritarian regimes,
Rwanda, for example, has a majority female parliament
which sounds great until you realize
that the parliament has no power whatsoever
and the president is very much male.
It might seem like a paradox
that even as democracy retreats around the world,
political participation has gone up
but it's not, it's a reaction against the fact
that more and more people
are aware that they are in danger of losing some
of their democratic freedoms
and they're not prepared to take that lying down.
They're getting out there,
they're voting more, they're organizing online
and sometimes they're demonstrating in the streets.
The biggest election in 2019
will be in India.
As always it will be the biggest election
held anywhere ever.
The fact that we don't know who's going to win
maybe the incumbent party,
maybe the opposition,
gives you a sense that it really will represent roughly
the will of a billion people.
Another big one to watch is Nigeria.
That will be incredibly corrupt
and quite a few people will get killed
but it's worth remembering
that only a couple of decades ago,
Nigeria was a dictatorship,
that's not true anymore
and despite the absence of a dictator,
Nigeria has held together despite all predictions.
It's another fine example, in fact,
of how democracy does have the ability
to hold disparate countries together
because it reflects the will of the actual voters.
And a final big election to watch
is for the European Parliament.
And here we don't even know which countries
are gonna participate,
so we don't know whether Britain's gonna be part
of it or not.
So, all eyes are gonna be watching,
will the European Union hold together,
will the rise of the populists
and the nationalists continue?
And my guess is that actually they've peaked
and this could be the start of their retreat.