Independent rankings built from public data — every figure traceable to the body that published it.
Report year 2015Data year 2015
Electoral democracy index (0–1)Higher is better — rank 1 leadsPublished by V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
36 reference years (1990–2025), covering 168 to 176 countries. The headline column is V-Dem’s Electoral Democracy Index (v2x_polyarchy), its flagship measure of how far rulers are made responsive to citizens through elections; the liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian indices are stored beside it, all on a 0–1 scale. ⚠ V-Dem’s data actually runs back to 1789, and the series is cut at 1990 deliberately: the deep history is populated by entities that no longer exist (Baden, the Papal States, Piedmont-Sardinia), and every row here keys to a present-day country. ⚠ Five entities from 1990 on are excluded for the same reason - three sub-state units V-Dem scores separately (Palestine/Gaza, Palestine/West Bank and Zanzibar) and two states that dissolved in 1990 (the German Democratic Republic and South Yemen). ⚠ V-Dem publishes no rank, so none is stored; the POSITION shown on the statistics page is derived here by ordering the score, and labelled as ours.
V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index 2015 — V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
Cite as: Coppedge, M. et al. V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v16. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, University of Gothenburg.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
V-Dem's five headline democracy indices for 2015, from the Country-Year Core dataset (v16). The headline column is the Electoral Democracy Index (v2x_polyarchy), V-Dem's flagship measure of how far rulers are made responsive to citizens through elections; the liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian indices are stored beside it. V-Dem publishes no rank, so none is stored and none is derived.
176 rows × 7 columns · imported from the publisher’s published data file on
Select any column heading to sort by it; select it again to reverse.
| Country | ISO Code | Electoral democracy (0–1) | Liberal democracy (0–1) | Participatory democracy (0–1) | Deliberative democracy (0–1) | Egalitarian democracy (0–1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denmark | DNK | 0.921 | 0.894 | 0.710 | 0.881 | 0.884 |
| Sweden | SWE | 0.915 | 0.881 | 0.657 | 0.878 | 0.850 |
| Costa Rica | CRI | 0.906 | 0.854 | 0.678 | 0.850 | 0.815 |
| Norway | NOR | 0.904 | 0.871 | 0.653 | 0.877 | 0.861 |
| Switzerland | CHE | 0.903 | 0.858 | 0.805 | 0.872 | 0.837 |
| Belgium | BEL | 0.901 | 0.837 | 0.650 | 0.811 | 0.835 |
| United States of America | USA | 0.900 | 0.848 | 0.653 | 0.854 | 0.728 |
| Uruguay | URY | 0.897 | 0.832 | 0.750 | 0.827 | 0.799 |
| Ireland | IRL | 0.895 | 0.825 | 0.644 | 0.803 | 0.777 |
| Estonia | EST | 0.894 | 0.845 | 0.633 | 0.810 | 0.795 |
| Portugal | PRT | 0.887 | 0.829 | 0.639 | 0.810 | 0.796 |
| Chile | CHL | 0.886 | 0.839 | 0.589 | 0.819 | 0.665 |
| France | FRA | 0.883 | 0.812 | 0.629 | 0.820 | 0.801 |
| Germany | DEU | 0.883 | 0.845 | 0.639 | 0.850 | 0.827 |
| New Zealand | NZL | 0.883 | 0.828 | 0.687 | 0.765 | 0.778 |
| Greece | GRC | 0.880 | 0.785 | 0.642 | 0.764 | 0.784 |
| Netherlands | NLD | 0.879 | 0.831 | 0.608 | 0.815 | 0.802 |
| Poland | POL | 0.876 | 0.775 | 0.616 | 0.693 | 0.786 |
| Luxembourg | LUX | 0.874 | 0.793 | 0.632 | 0.826 | 0.823 |
| Austria | AUT | 0.873 | 0.805 | 0.659 | 0.792 | 0.768 |
| Slovenia | SVN | 0.873 | 0.804 | 0.689 | 0.785 | 0.788 |
| Finland | FIN | 0.869 | 0.827 | 0.610 | 0.806 | 0.808 |
| Australia | AUS | 0.865 | 0.825 | 0.603 | 0.794 | 0.756 |
| Italy | ITA | 0.865 | 0.786 | 0.671 | 0.804 | 0.785 |
| Brazil | BRA | 0.861 | 0.769 | 0.615 | 0.792 | 0.608 |
| Iceland | ISL | 0.861 | 0.777 | 0.638 | 0.693 | 0.794 |
| Spain | ESP | 0.856 | 0.759 | 0.612 | 0.743 | 0.757 |
| United Kingdom | GBR | 0.855 | 0.788 | 0.631 | 0.728 | 0.728 |
| Czechia | CZE | 0.852 | 0.766 | 0.568 | 0.730 | 0.769 |
| Cyprus | CYP | 0.851 | 0.737 | 0.577 | 0.735 | 0.738 |
| Latvia | LVA | 0.838 | 0.754 | 0.658 | 0.719 | 0.726 |
| Slovakia | SVK | 0.838 | 0.725 | 0.635 | 0.645 | 0.671 |
| Lithuania | LTU | 0.836 | 0.780 | 0.639 | 0.737 | 0.747 |
| Japan | JPN | 0.817 | 0.740 | 0.527 | 0.726 | 0.738 |
| Peru | PER | 0.817 | 0.688 | 0.584 | 0.631 | 0.508 |
| Croatia | HRV | 0.816 | 0.703 | 0.593 | 0.644 | 0.656 |
| Canada | CAN | 0.807 | 0.735 | 0.552 | 0.687 | 0.665 |
| Taiwan | TWN | 0.806 | 0.686 | 0.601 | 0.670 | 0.709 |
| Jamaica | JAM | 0.798 | 0.679 | 0.539 | 0.694 | 0.606 |
| Cape Verde | CPV | 0.795 | 0.707 | 0.472 | 0.643 | 0.639 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | TTO | 0.791 | 0.676 | 0.507 | 0.650 | 0.654 |
| Malta | MLT | 0.778 | 0.584 | 0.574 | 0.632 | 0.678 |
| Barbados | BRB | 0.776 | 0.662 | 0.337 | 0.680 | 0.635 |
| Argentina | ARG | 0.765 | 0.590 | 0.513 | 0.559 | 0.603 |
| Suriname | SUR | 0.757 | 0.633 | 0.477 | 0.606 | 0.560 |
| Panama | PAN | 0.755 | 0.553 | 0.475 | 0.632 | 0.497 |
| South Africa | ZAF | 0.755 | 0.649 | 0.500 | 0.631 | 0.516 |
| Vanuatu | VUT | 0.747 | 0.639 | 0.451 | 0.587 | 0.605 |
| Ghana | GHA | 0.739 | 0.631 | 0.368 | 0.606 | 0.537 |
| Mauritius | MUS | 0.737 | 0.627 | 0.465 | 0.608 | 0.601 |
| Israel | ISR | 0.733 | 0.654 | 0.469 | 0.591 | 0.596 |
| Tunisia | TUN | 0.727 | 0.629 | 0.407 | 0.657 | 0.585 |
| Senegal | SEN | 0.726 | 0.586 | 0.434 | 0.615 | 0.543 |
| Romania | ROU | 0.716 | 0.609 | 0.501 | 0.514 | 0.554 |
| Namibia | NAM | 0.707 | 0.579 | 0.444 | 0.552 | 0.472 |
| South Korea | KOR | 0.705 | 0.599 | 0.462 | 0.545 | 0.597 |
| Botswana | BWA | 0.690 | 0.587 | 0.438 | 0.529 | 0.485 |
| Colombia | COL | 0.681 | 0.551 | 0.461 | 0.566 | 0.420 |
| Mongolia | MNG | 0.681 | 0.556 | 0.378 | 0.560 | 0.528 |
| Bulgaria | BGR | 0.671 | 0.566 | 0.463 | 0.543 | 0.519 |
| Georgia | GEO | 0.668 | 0.504 | 0.434 | 0.517 | 0.531 |
| Sao Tome and Principe | STP | 0.664 | 0.554 | 0.409 | 0.472 | 0.465 |
| El Salvador | SLV | 0.658 | 0.462 | 0.407 | 0.460 | 0.316 |
| Indonesia | IDN | 0.654 | 0.511 | 0.441 | 0.565 | 0.435 |
| Benin | BEN | 0.652 | 0.523 | 0.430 | 0.562 | 0.497 |
| Kosovo | XKX | 0.651 | 0.450 | 0.364 | 0.411 | 0.434 |
| Guyana | GUY | 0.650 | 0.444 | 0.402 | 0.376 | 0.463 |
| Timor-Leste | TLS | 0.644 | 0.466 | 0.362 | 0.446 | 0.405 |
| Mexico | MEX | 0.643 | 0.433 | 0.399 | 0.506 | 0.329 |
| Nepal | NPL | 0.643 | 0.534 | 0.357 | 0.440 | 0.438 |
| Niger | NER | 0.622 | 0.493 | 0.448 | 0.554 | 0.414 |
| Hungary | HUN | 0.617 | 0.477 | 0.404 | 0.366 | 0.467 |
| Liberia | LBR | 0.611 | 0.451 | 0.340 | 0.522 | 0.392 |
| Bolivia | BOL | 0.609 | 0.368 | 0.463 | 0.450 | 0.416 |
| Lesotho | LSO | 0.597 | 0.445 | 0.360 | 0.441 | 0.485 |
| Solomon Islands | SLB | 0.594 | 0.456 | 0.353 | 0.368 | 0.347 |
| Paraguay | PRY | 0.593 | 0.416 | 0.374 | 0.324 | 0.236 |
| Dominican Republic | DOM | 0.590 | 0.344 | 0.365 | 0.440 | 0.321 |
| Guatemala | GTM | 0.587 | 0.425 | 0.345 | 0.375 | 0.249 |
| Moldova | MDA | 0.570 | 0.476 | 0.369 | 0.397 | 0.427 |
| Bhutan | BTN | 0.568 | 0.479 | 0.354 | 0.474 | 0.470 |
| Nigeria | NGA | 0.554 | 0.401 | 0.372 | 0.421 | 0.308 |
| Sri Lanka | LKA | 0.550 | 0.397 | 0.360 | 0.408 | 0.361 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | BIH | 0.547 | 0.363 | 0.320 | 0.345 | 0.388 |
| India | IND | 0.543 | 0.417 | 0.330 | 0.411 | 0.318 |
| Mali | MLI | 0.543 | 0.349 | 0.327 | 0.446 | 0.348 |
| Malawi | MWI | 0.540 | 0.444 | 0.343 | 0.433 | 0.322 |
| Kenya | KEN | 0.539 | 0.426 | 0.376 | 0.439 | 0.333 |
| Ecuador | ECU | 0.533 | 0.263 | 0.363 | 0.341 | 0.377 |
| Philippines | PHL | 0.522 | 0.409 | 0.361 | 0.466 | 0.270 |
| Albania | ALB | 0.518 | 0.435 | 0.313 | 0.290 | 0.374 |
| Seychelles | SYC | 0.518 | 0.427 | 0.208 | 0.387 | 0.417 |
| Sierra Leone | SLE | 0.514 | 0.318 | 0.340 | 0.378 | 0.300 |
| Guinea-Bissau | GNB | 0.501 | 0.290 | 0.219 | 0.285 | 0.283 |
| Montenegro | MNE | 0.484 | 0.387 | 0.320 | 0.393 | 0.396 |
| Lebanon | LBN | 0.480 | 0.295 | 0.262 | 0.378 | 0.301 |
| Madagascar | MDG | 0.476 | 0.258 | 0.301 | 0.269 | 0.238 |
| Ivory Coast | CIV | 0.473 | 0.304 | 0.309 | 0.398 | 0.294 |
| Togo | TGO | 0.471 | 0.258 | 0.184 | 0.377 | 0.343 |
| Zambia | ZMB | 0.458 | 0.371 | 0.298 | 0.273 | 0.294 |
| Kyrgyzstan | KGZ | 0.455 | 0.317 | 0.277 | 0.381 | 0.312 |
| Tanzania | TZA | 0.453 | 0.391 | 0.288 | 0.374 | 0.355 |
| Papua New Guinea | PNG | 0.444 | 0.345 | 0.268 | 0.257 | 0.248 |
| Pakistan | PAK | 0.441 | 0.264 | 0.272 | 0.286 | 0.148 |
| North Macedonia | MKD | 0.440 | 0.270 | 0.299 | 0.253 | 0.309 |
| Mozambique | MOZ | 0.437 | 0.299 | 0.270 | 0.298 | 0.278 |
| Mauritania | MRT | 0.431 | 0.178 | 0.175 | 0.258 | 0.179 |
| Honduras | HND | 0.426 | 0.245 | 0.276 | 0.288 | 0.163 |
| Haiti | HTI | 0.425 | 0.243 | 0.251 | 0.269 | 0.134 |
| Serbia | SRB | 0.422 | 0.341 | 0.281 | 0.294 | 0.338 |
| Ukraine | UKR | 0.420 | 0.228 | 0.293 | 0.367 | 0.295 |
| Singapore | SGP | 0.416 | 0.331 | 0.110 | 0.353 | 0.367 |
| Somaliland | XSL | 0.401 | 0.247 | 0.247 | 0.267 | 0.157 |
| Iraq | IRQ | 0.396 | 0.236 | 0.259 | 0.260 | 0.210 |
| Comoros | COM | 0.395 | 0.240 | 0.267 | 0.284 | 0.278 |
| Türkiye | TUR | 0.388 | 0.230 | 0.264 | 0.157 | 0.292 |
| Fiji | FJI | 0.385 | 0.270 | 0.190 | 0.278 | 0.289 |
| Maldives | MDV | 0.380 | 0.187 | 0.235 | 0.230 | 0.235 |
| Burkina Faso | BFA | 0.376 | 0.306 | 0.232 | 0.359 | 0.264 |
| Gabon | GAB | 0.375 | 0.223 | 0.262 | 0.327 | 0.292 |
| Guinea | GIN | 0.375 | 0.161 | 0.251 | 0.155 | 0.222 |
| Burma/Myanmar | MMR | 0.370 | 0.181 | 0.215 | 0.283 | 0.200 |
| Afghanistan | AFG | 0.348 | 0.201 | 0.142 | 0.286 | 0.199 |
| Armenia | ARM | 0.346 | 0.203 | 0.190 | 0.224 | 0.282 |
| Hong Kong | HKG | 0.345 | 0.303 | 0.128 | 0.280 | 0.303 |
| Algeria | DZA | 0.331 | 0.175 | 0.119 | 0.239 | 0.271 |
| Malaysia | MYS | 0.325 | 0.204 | 0.232 | 0.244 | 0.227 |
| Cameroon | CMR | 0.324 | 0.152 | 0.169 | 0.151 | 0.201 |
| Nicaragua | NIC | 0.318 | 0.124 | 0.186 | 0.138 | 0.166 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | COD | 0.316 | 0.122 | 0.204 | 0.142 | 0.184 |
| Kuwait | KWT | 0.311 | 0.278 | 0.108 | 0.305 | 0.244 |
| Zimbabwe | ZWE | 0.302 | 0.212 | 0.236 | 0.226 | 0.192 |
| Uganda | UGA | 0.300 | 0.222 | 0.218 | 0.269 | 0.188 |
| Venezuela | VEN | 0.300 | 0.103 | 0.209 | 0.069 | 0.210 |
| Cambodia | KHM | 0.291 | 0.115 | 0.114 | 0.144 | 0.114 |
| Angola | AGO | 0.290 | 0.122 | 0.066 | 0.117 | 0.099 |
| Libya | LBY | 0.285 | 0.172 | 0.179 | 0.232 | 0.198 |
| Central African Republic | CAF | 0.284 | 0.179 | 0.130 | 0.180 | 0.176 |
| Chad | TCD | 0.279 | 0.091 | 0.124 | 0.121 | 0.098 |
| Bangladesh | BGD | 0.275 | 0.108 | 0.122 | 0.132 | 0.120 |
| Russia | RUS | 0.265 | 0.109 | 0.149 | 0.154 | 0.205 |
| Morocco | MAR | 0.264 | 0.230 | 0.175 | 0.254 | 0.187 |
| Jordan | JOR | 0.255 | 0.221 | 0.113 | 0.218 | 0.201 |
| Republic of the Congo | COG | 0.249 | 0.102 | 0.132 | 0.159 | 0.103 |
| Belarus | BLR | 0.247 | 0.100 | 0.090 | 0.093 | 0.281 |
| Djibouti | DJI | 0.245 | 0.114 | 0.133 | 0.138 | 0.155 |
| The Gambia | GMB | 0.244 | 0.106 | 0.140 | 0.087 | 0.177 |
| Kazakhstan | KAZ | 0.234 | 0.110 | 0.073 | 0.110 | 0.178 |
| Ethiopia | ETH | 0.228 | 0.102 | 0.094 | 0.148 | 0.149 |
| Rwanda | RWA | 0.226 | 0.138 | 0.199 | 0.203 | 0.224 |
| Sudan | SDN | 0.220 | 0.064 | 0.087 | 0.060 | 0.059 |
| Burundi | BDI | 0.196 | 0.063 | 0.167 | 0.092 | 0.126 |
| Azerbaijan | AZE | 0.193 | 0.063 | 0.056 | 0.062 | 0.142 |
| Iran | IRN | 0.186 | 0.136 | 0.048 | 0.177 | 0.177 |
| Tajikistan | TJK | 0.184 | 0.042 | 0.051 | 0.049 | 0.086 |
| Yemen | YEM | 0.184 | 0.069 | 0.090 | 0.054 | 0.046 |
| Equatorial Guinea | GNQ | 0.178 | 0.050 | 0.057 | 0.060 | 0.103 |
| Oman | OMN | 0.172 | 0.141 | 0.123 | 0.070 | 0.180 |
| Cuba | CUB | 0.168 | 0.057 | 0.045 | 0.089 | 0.237 |
| South Sudan | SSD | 0.166 | 0.066 | 0.087 | 0.047 | 0.036 |
| Uzbekistan | UZB | 0.166 | 0.036 | 0.038 | 0.039 | 0.130 |
| Somalia | SOM | 0.162 | 0.123 | 0.087 | 0.150 | 0.062 |
| Thailand | THA | 0.160 | 0.105 | 0.073 | 0.023 | 0.147 |
| Egypt | EGY | 0.156 | 0.093 | 0.052 | 0.103 | 0.080 |
| Vietnam | VNM | 0.148 | 0.115 | 0.167 | 0.178 | 0.200 |
| Bahrain | BHR | 0.144 | 0.051 | 0.046 | 0.051 | 0.117 |
| Turkmenistan | TKM | 0.143 | 0.024 | 0.031 | 0.031 | 0.085 |
| Syria | SYR | 0.136 | 0.025 | 0.045 | 0.017 | 0.066 |
| Eswatini | SWZ | 0.131 | 0.097 | 0.121 | 0.089 | 0.093 |
| United Arab Emirates | ARE | 0.095 | 0.090 | 0.030 | 0.086 | 0.134 |
| Laos | LAO | 0.090 | 0.089 | 0.096 | 0.046 | 0.098 |
| North Korea | PRK | 0.085 | 0.014 | 0.043 | 0.009 | 0.088 |
| China | CHN | 0.082 | 0.052 | 0.040 | 0.149 | 0.095 |
| Eritrea | ERI | 0.069 | 0.006 | 0.010 | 0.022 | 0.150 |
| Qatar | QAT | 0.041 | 0.089 | 0.024 | 0.090 | 0.114 |
| Saudi Arabia | SAU | 0.016 | 0.046 | 0.029 | 0.047 | 0.101 |