Democracy in Asia can be comparatively assessed[1] according to various definitions of democracy.[2] According to the V-Dem Democracy indices, the Asian countries with the highest democracy scores in 2023 are Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Israel, meanwhile the Asian countries with lowest democracy scores in 2023 are Saudi Arabia, China and Afghanistan.[3] Democratic backsliding can be observed in parts of Asia.[4]

Measures of democracy

The table below shows Asian countries scored on the 5 high-level V-Dem Democracy indices in 2023.[3][5]

V-Dem Democracy Indices (13th edition)
Country Electoral Democracy Liberal Democracy Participatory Democracy Deliberative Democracy Egalitarian Democracy
 Japan 0.833 0.736 0.537 0.744 0.761
 Taiwan 0.831 0.725 0.66 0.734 0.745
 South Korea 0.812 0.732 0.539 0.682 0.698
 Israel 0.723 0.65 0.473 0.612 0.591
 Timor-Leste 0.695 0.504 0.432 0.497 0.434
 Georgia 0.647 0.504 0.408 0.532 0.515
 Nepal 0.646 0.501 0.427 0.394 0.419
 Armenia 0.645 0.445 0.401 0.502 0.54
 Maldives 0.583 0.44 0.323 0.43 0.402
 Sri Lanka 0.575 0.412 0.343 0.328 0.369
 Indonesia 0.574 0.422 0.385 0.487 0.316
 Mongolia 0.566 0.431 0.293 0.434 0.38
 Bhutan 0.535 0.434 0.328 0.495 0.446
 Papua New Guinea 0.458 0.366 0.275 0.273 0.268
 Malaysia 0.438 0.304 0.255 0.323 0.339
 Philippines 0.431 0.283 0.287 0.36 0.193
 Lebanon 0.426 0.258 0.248 0.319 0.26
 Singapore 0.425 0.339 0.121 0.356 0.361
 India 0.399 0.306 0.262 0.295 0.235
 Pakistan 0.388 0.26 0.256 0.32 0.156
 Kyrgyzstan 0.382 0.228 0.204 0.284 0.232
 Iraq 0.362 0.197 0.195 0.222 0.187
 Kuwait 0.317 0.301 0.101 0.267 0.236
 Kazakhstan 0.277 0.14 0.114 0.178 0.224
 Turkey 0.276 0.118 0.164 0.084 0.209
 Bangladesh 0.274 0.109 0.127 0.121 0.114
 Palestine (West Bank) 0.26 0.139 0.173 0.148 0.211
 Jordan 0.259 0.249 0.12 0.22 0.203
 Uzbekistan 0.221 0.081 0.064 0.16 0.16
 Russia 0.209 0.071 0.142 0.073 0.15
 Thailand 0.206 0.179 0.109 0.073 0.16
 Cambodia 0.206 0.063 0.117 0.067 0.092
 Azerbaijan 0.188 0.063 0.059 0.048 0.098
 Iran 0.182 0.105 0.047 0.093 0.171
 Tajikistan 0.175 0.048 0.054 0.055 0.07
 Oman 0.17 0.137 0.121 0.062 0.185
 Vietnam 0.157 0.115 0.159 0.174 0.194
 Hong Kong 0.154 0.126 0.056 0.048 0.191
 Turkmenistan 0.149 0.035 0.032 0.025 0.088
 Palestine (Gaza) 0.138 0.081 0.122 0.071 0.165
 Syria 0.138 0.033 0.051 0.034 0.054
 Laos 0.134 0.108 0.115 0.057 0.129
 Yemen 0.123 0.045 0.069 0.03 0.026
 Bahrain 0.122 0.055 0.036 0.068 0.113
 United Arab Emirates 0.101 0.086 0.032 0.086 0.136
 Myanmar 0.093 0.046 0.093 0.062 0.067
 Qatar 0.088 0.083 0.022 0.104 0.099
 North Korea 0.087 0.01 0.045 0.011 0.084
 Afghanistan 0.082 0.028 0.019 0.025 0.019
 China 0.075 0.04 0.042 0.079 0.088
 Saudi Arabia 0.016 0.043 0.026 0.06 0.109

See also

References

  1. ^ Geissel, Brigitte; Kneuer, Marianne; Lauth, Hans-Joachim (2016). "Measuring the quality of democracy: Introduction". International Political Science Review. Sage Publications. 37 (5): 571–579. doi:10.1177/0192512116669141. ISSN 0192-5121. JSTOR 26556872. S2CID 151808737. Retrieved 2023-04-03.
  2. ^ Greenwood, Shannon (2022-12-06). "Appendix A: Classifying democracies". Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  3. ^ a b V-Dem Institute (2023). "The V-Dem Dataset". Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  4. ^ Croissant, Aurel, and Jeffrey Haynes. "Democratic regression in Asia: introduction." Democratization 28.1 (2021): 1-21.
  5. ^ Coppedge, Michael, et al. Varieties of democracy: Measuring two centuries of political change. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
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