Montenegro remained among the countries with deficient democracy, and received the fewest points for the criterion of political culture, according to the new Democracy Index of the British magazine The Economist.
Montenegro is 52nd in the democracy index for 2023 with 6,67 points, which is an improvement of nine positions compared to 2022.
This is also the most points for Montenegro since the restoration of independence, and the best result so far (6,57) was in 2006.
Montenegro recorded the greatest progress in the Eastern European region for the second year in a row, as our country's score improved from 6,45 in 2022 to 6,67. Montenegro was upgraded from a "hybrid regime" to a "deficient democracy" in 2021.
It is also among the five countries whose score has improved the most compared to 2022, along with Benin, Tanzania, Angola and Malta.
For the electoral process and pluralism, she received 8,75 out of the maximum ten, for civil liberties 7,06, for the functioning of the government 7,14, political participation 6,67 and for political culture only 3,75 points.
Among the countries with deficient democracy are 11 members of the European Union, as well as five candidates for membership (Albania, Montenegro, Moldova, North Macedonia and Serbia).
Almost half of the world's population lives in some kind of democracy, but only less than eight percent in a full democracy, while more than a third live under authoritarian rule, according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a research and analysis part of the Economist Group.
The 2023 "Age of Conflict" report included 167 countries and territories classified as full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes or authoritarian regimes.
The countries were evaluated according to five criteria: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.
Of the neighboring countries, Croatia is 58th on the global list, Serbia 64th, Albania 66th, North Macedonia 72nd, Bosnia and Herzegovina 94th.
The report states that in 2023 the number of countries classified as democracies increased by two, to 74, but the global index fell to 5,23 from 5,29 in 2022, which means that the trend of regression and stagnation of recent years has continued.
The number of full democracies with an index greater than eight remained the same as a year earlier - 24, while those with deficient democracy were 50, or two more than in 2022.
Of the remaining 95 countries, 34 are hybrid regimes and 59 are classified as authoritarian.
At the top of the democracy index for 2023 is Norway (with a score of 9,81), followed by New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
At the back are the Central African Republic, North Korea and Myanmar and the last Afghanistan with only 0,26 points.
Looking at the regions, the most complete democracies are in Western Europe, 15 out of a total of 24. Also, eight Western European countries are among the ten best placed on the democracy index.
In the Europe and Central Asia region, which includes Montenegro, there are no full democracies, but several of the 16 countries are among the deficient, including four EU candidates from the Western Balkans.
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