A flawed democracy

US may be the biggest democracy on planet. Yet India is the largest democracy in the world because of its vast participation of public in the electoral process and decision making or more so in  comparison to its neighbouring countries. But if you ask in the same logic – Is India the best democratic country in the world? Then the answer is no. This is what Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU), a US based international research body had recently said so. Where does India stand today then? According to it, India is a “Flawed democracy”. Out of the total 167 countries, India ranks 35th position, which is based on a collective score of electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, and functioning of government.
The EIU’s democracy index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Countries are placed within one of four types of regimes: full democracies; flawed democracies; hybrid regimes; and authoritarian regimes.
It further said that although almost half of the world’s countries can be considered to be democracies, the number of “full democracies” is relatively low (only 30); 50 are rated as “flawed democracies”. Of the remaining 87 states, 51 are authoritarian and 36 are considered to be “hybrid regimes”. The developed of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries dominate among full democracies, although there are two Latin American, two central European and one African country, which suggest that the level of development is not binding constraint. Only two Asian countries are represented: Japan and South Korea.
There are several ways in which democracy might be adversely affected:

• Economic recession could boost extremist political forces in western Europe, and is also likely to feed anti-immigrant sentiment. These trends will interact with existing concerns about terrorism and could result in a further erosion of civil liberties.

• Many non-consolidated democracies are very fragile and if subjected to intense socio-economic stress, backsliding in democracy is possible. This would especially be the case in much of Latin America (which has a history of democracy reversals), Eastern Europe, and Africa where progress in democratisation in recent decades—already under stress in many cases—could suffer significant setbacks.

• The shallowness of democratic cultures—as revealed by disturbingly low scores for many countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit's indexes for political participation and political culture—also underscores the fragility of many democracies and the potential for reversals.

• Serious recessions typically threaten democracy via increased social unrest. It is therefore worrying that 48 countries are assessed by the Economist Intelligence Unit as being at high risk of social unrest. In the category of flawed democracies there are 15 such countries out of 55; among hybrid regimes, 16 out of 36; and 17, or one third, of the 51 authoritarian states. It is true that historically economic crises and difficulties have been associated with democratic breakthroughs, such as the sudden collapse of seemingly stable autocratic regimes, as much as with the opposite outcome of increasing authoritarianism. However, under present circumstances, and given the combination of other factors that are at work, it seems much more likely that the negative impact on democratisation would predominate.

• Democracy promotion by the Western world was already discredited by the experience in the Middle East over recent years. The economic crisis is likely to further undermine the credibility of efforts by developed nations to promote their values abroad.

• The financial and economic crisis may increase the attractiveness of the Chinese model of authoritarian capitalism for many emerging markets.

Political and economic freedom are often closely associated Our democracy index is negatively correlated with levels of government regulation in various fields, including the degree of financial sector regulation. While the causality is unclear, a rise in economic nationalism may be associated with less democracy.