V-Dem Democracy Indices

The Democracy Indices by V-Dem are democracy indices published by the V-Dem Institute that describe qualities of different democracies. It is published annually. It is considered by UNESCO to be the world's most comprehensive democracy ratings.

Datasets analysis 50 indices and consist of over 450 specific indicators, focusing on both qualitative and quantitative measurements of democracy. V-Dem utilizes historical data dating back to the 1800s for some countries, multiple coders for each question, and large measurement models. They use several key principles: electoral, liberal, majoritarian, consensual, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, with variables describing various aspects of government, especially on the quality of democracy, inclusivity, and other economic indicators. In 2020, the V-Dem index had "more than 470 indicators, 82 mid-level indices, and 5 high-level indices covering 202 polities from the period of 1789–2019".

Democracy indices

As of 2022, the V-Dem Institute published 483 indicators and republishes 59 other indicators. V-Dem publishes five core indices with several other supplementary indices. The core indices are the electoral democracy index, the liberal democracy index, the participatory democracy index, the Deliberative Democracy Index and the egalitarian democracy index.

The Electoral Democracy Index

This index measures the principle of electoral or representative democracy, including whether elections were free and fair, as well as the prevalence of a free and independent media. This index is part of all the other indices as a central component of democracy.

Liberal Democracy Index

This index incorporates measures of rule of law, checks and balances, and civil liberties along with the concepts measured in the electoral democracy index.

Participatory Democracy Index

This index measures the degree to which citizens participate in their own government through local democratic institutions, civil society organizations, direct democracy, and the concepts measured in the electoral democracy.

Deliberative Democracy Index

This index measures the degree to which decisions are made in the best interest of the people as opposed to due to coercion or narrow interest groups, in addition to the basic electoral democracy index.

Egalitarian Democracy Index

This index measures the level of equal access to resources, power, and freedoms across various groups within a society, in addition to the level of electoral democracy.

By country

The table below shows 2026 V-Dem Democracy indices describing the year 2025.

V-Dem Democracy Indices (16th edition)
Country	Democracy Indices	Democracy Component Indices
Electoral	Liberal	Liberal	Egalitarian	Participatory	Deliberative
Denmark	0.91	0.88	0.98	0.97	0.71	0.96
Norway	0.89	0.85	0.96	0.96	0.65	0.99
Sweden	0.89	0.85	0.98	0.9	0.65	0.93
Belgium	0.89	0.79	0.89	0.93	0.65	0.86
Ireland	0.89	0.82	0.93	0.87	0.63	0.91
Estonia	0.89	0.84	0.95	0.92	0.63	0.84
Switzerland	0.88	0.84	0.97	0.94	0.88	0.98
Luxembourg	0.87	0.78	0.89	0.95	0.56	0.97
France	0.86	0.8	0.94	0.81	0.63	0.93
Costa Rica	0.86	0.81	0.95	0.88	0.64	0.92
Uruguay	0.86	0.79	0.93	0.77	0.82	0.93
Finland	0.85	0.81	0.96	0.81	0.64	0.9
Czech Republic	0.85	0.79	0.95	0.91	0.59	0.81
New Zealand	0.85	0.79	0.94	0.85	0.61	0.72
Australia	0.84	0.79	0.96	0.85	0.73	0.93
Canada	0.84	0.74	0.87	0.7	0.64	0.79
Chile	0.84	0.78	0.95	0.73	0.62	0.93
Austria	0.84	0.76	0.91	0.86	0.63	0.87
Latvia	0.83	0.75	0.91	0.87	0.66	0.81
Netherlands	0.83	0.77	0.94	0.89	0.59	0.9
Germany	0.83	0.78	0.97	0.94	0.66	0.98
Spain	0.82	0.74	0.91	0.84	0.64	0.83
Portugal	0.82	0.72	0.87	0.7	0.57	0.84
Japan	0.82	0.73	0.9	0.94	0.56	0.9
South Korea	0.82	0.74	0.91	0.87	0.61	0.94
Iceland	0.81	0.72	0.9	0.92	0.65	0.88
Jamaica	0.8	0.68	0.84	0.81	0.58	0.87
Taiwan	0.8	0.7	0.89	0.88	0.8	0.86
Barbados	0.8	0.68	0.85	0.85	0.3	0.92
Lithuania	0.79	0.71	0.92	0.88	0.67	0.84
Trinidad and Tobago	0.79	0.67	0.85	0.84	0.57	0.74
Brazil	0.78	0.7	0.91	0.64	0.62	0.92
Malta	0.78	0.62	0.77	0.9	0.62	0.81
Sri Lanka	0.78	0.61	0.76	0.71	0.61	0.78
Suriname	0.78	0.63	0.78	0.74	0.58	0.78
Cyprus	0.77	0.66	0.86	0.9	0.56	0.78
United Kingdom	0.77	0.69	0.9	0.78	0.64	0.86
Poland	0.77	0.64	0.83	0.88	0.62	0.85
Seychelles	0.76	0.68	0.91	0.83	0.32	0.95
Cabo Verde	0.74	0.63	0.84	0.72	0.54	0.69
Italy	0.74	0.64	0.87	0.89	0.74	0.82
South Africa	0.74	0.63	0.86	0.65	0.56	0.9
Greece	0.74	0.57	0.74	0.87	0.61	0.82
Mauritius	0.74	0.64	0.87	0.76	0.59	0.92
East Timor	0.74	0.55	0.71	0.58	0.56	0.7
Dominican Republic	0.74	0.5	0.63	0.46	0.58	0.9
United States	0.74	0.57	0.75	0.57	0.64	0.61
Slovakia	0.73	0.57	0.76	0.75	0.64	0.37
Vanuatu	0.73	0.62	0.86	0.75	0.32	0.57
Panama	0.73	0.57	0.77	0.55	0.53	0.76
Ghana	0.71	0.61	0.86	0.64	0.4	0.82
Solomon Islands	0.7	0.54	0.76	0.57	0.55	0.48
Israel	0.69	0.59	0.85	0.78	0.6	0.71
Slovenia	0.69	0.59	0.85	0.88	0.7	0.9
Argentina	0.69	0.52	0.74	0.69	0.56	0.52
Croatia	0.69	0.59	0.87	0.78	0.62	0.7
Colombia	0.68	0.56	0.81	0.52	0.64	0.62
Peru	0.67	0.51	0.74	0.5	0.62	0.48
Botswana	0.66	0.52	0.76	0.69	0.47	0.43
Lesotho	0.66	0.51	0.76	0.72	0.55	0.71
Nepal	0.66	0.5	0.75	0.58	0.62	0.54
The Gambia	0.64	0.52	0.81	0.67	0.58	0.74
Guatemala	0.64	0.52	0.81	0.44	0.61	0.72
Montenegro	0.64	0.5	0.77	0.78	0.57	0.81
Namibia	0.63	0.52	0.82	0.46	0.47	0.7
Senegal	0.63	0.48	0.74	0.69	0.58	0.89
São Tomé and Príncipe	0.63	0.52	0.82	0.67	0.55	0.6
Kosovo	0.63	0.46	0.69	0.69	0.46	0.56
Armenia	0.61	0.37	0.53	0.78	0.42	0.55
Ecuador	0.61	0.39	0.57	0.33	0.74	0.53
Bolivia	0.6	0.35	0.51	0.6	0.64	0.27
Romania	0.6	0.46	0.75	0.66	0.65	0.38
Bulgaria	0.6	0.5	0.83	0.71	0.62	0.78
Liberia	0.6	0.42	0.65	0.59	0.46	0.81
Paraguay	0.58	0.38	0.59	0.29	0.52	0.45
Bhutan	0.57	0.46	0.79	0.81	0.55	0.9
Kenya	0.56	0.45	0.77	0.55	0.52	0.79
North Macedonia	0.56	0.37	0.61	0.61	0.56	0.61
Malawi	0.56	0.46	0.82	0.49	0.6	0.84
Maldives	0.56	0.42	0.72	0.61	0.49	0.72
Moldova	0.55	0.45	0.79	0.77	0.66	0.78
Mongolia	0.54	0.42	0.76	0.66	0.43	0.83
Guyana	0.52	0.33	0.57	0.7	0.46	0.37
Honduras	0.51	0.38	0.69	0.4	0.56	0.64
Fiji	0.51	0.4	0.75	0.68	0.43	0.77
Nigeria	0.5	0.31	0.54	0.56	0.57	0.63
Malaysia	0.5	0.36	0.64	0.71	0.53	0.66
Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.5	0.34	0.62	0.66	0.52	0.59
Zambia	0.5	0.38	0.71	0.44	0.65	0.81
Benin	0.49	0.32	0.59	0.74	0.49	0.53
Albania	0.48	0.38	0.74	0.67	0.52	0.38
Sierra Leone	0.47	0.35	0.67	0.65	0.58	0.9
Mexico	0.47	0.22	0.36	0.47	0.65	0.43
Papua New Guinea	0.47	0.38	0.78	0.43	0.51	0.43
Indonesia	0.46	0.3	0.56	0.45	0.57	0.74
Somaliland	0.44	0.3	0.58	0.32	0.52	0.6
Singapore	0.43	0.36	0.77	0.79	0.14	0.75
Thailand	0.42	0.31	0.67	0.49	0.33	0.35
Hungary	0.42	0.32	0.67	0.62	0.54	0.3
Lebanon	0.42	0.27	0.54	0.5	0.42	0.76
Georgia	0.4	0.28	0.59	0.69	0.48	0.72
Tunisia	0.4	0.26	0.57	0.73	0.51	0.75
Ivory Coast	0.39	0.23	0.47	0.49	0.57	0.5
Philippines	0.39	0.29	0.64	0.31	0.56	0.54
Ukraine	0.39	0.24	0.52	0.68	0.55	0.75
India	0.38	0.26	0.57	0.41	0.54	0.57
Iraq	0.37	0.22	0.48	0.41	0.49	0.62
Tanzania	0.36	0.3	0.7	0.76	0.56	0.68
Madagascar	0.36	0.19	0.39	0.34	0.47	0.36
Togo	0.35	0.16	0.32	0.56	0.54	0.71
Angola	0.34	0.16	0.34	0.24	0.16	0.37
Mauritania	0.33	0.13	0.25	0.29	0.53	0.56
El Salvador	0.32	0.09	0.14	0.25	0.35	0.25
Kyrgyzstan	0.31	0.18	0.42	0.59	0.37	0.32
Zanzibar	0.31	0.25	0.65	0.62	0.4	0.56
Democratic Republic of the Congo	0.31	0.12	0.23	0.36	0.49	0.54
Gabon	0.3	0.18	0.43	0.64	0.62	0.58
Pakistan	0.3	0.18	0.42	0.26	0.47	0.43
Serbia	0.3	0.21	0.52	0.73	0.55	0.52
Comoros	0.29	0.13	0.3	0.58	0.51	0.28
Central African Republic	0.29	0.1	0.21	0.24	0.29	0.29
Turkey	0.29	0.11	0.23	0.54	0.4	0.13
Jordan	0.28	0.27	0.76	0.56	0.31	0.74
Mozambique	0.28	0.18	0.45	0.49	0.53	0.44
Zimbabwe	0.27	0.15	0.37	0.33	0.55	0.6
Algeria	0.26	0.13	0.3	0.57	0.2	0.48
Cameroon	0.26	0.11	0.27	0.48	0.2	0.22
Kazakhstan	0.26	0.13	0.33	0.56	0.25	0.5
Morocco	0.26	0.25	0.72	0.56	0.39	0.81
Ethiopia	0.26	0.1	0.23	0.43	0.32	0.52
Uganda	0.25	0.16	0.44	0.36	0.41	0.65
Guinea-Bissau	0.25	0.1	0.22	0.47	0.33	0.32
Djibouti	0.25	0.12	0.29	0.54	0.37	0.38
Republic of the Congo	0.24	0.12	0.29	0.26	0.53	0.45
Chad	0.24	0.06	0.11	0.18	0.34	0.32
Haiti	0.24	0.1	0.24	0.17	0.31	0.56
Niger	0.23	0.18	0.51	0.64	0.56	0.77
Uzbekistan	0.22	0.08	0.19	0.44	0.2	0.45
Palestine (West Bank)	0.21	0.11	0.31	0.56	0.44	0.17
Bangladesh	0.2	0.12	0.34	0.33	0.28	0.48
Libya	0.19	0.1	0.28	0.36	0.24	0.84
Rwanda	0.19	0.09	0.25	0.51	0.39	0.57
Guinea	0.19	0.1	0.27	0.46	0.36	0.27
Egypt	0.19	0.12	0.34	0.31	0.21	0.36
Burundi	0.18	0.06	0.15	0.28	0.44	0.17
Cambodia	0.18	0.05	0.12	0.24	0.15	0.22
Venezuela	0.18	0.04	0.09	0.22	0.46	0.02
Cuba	0.18	0.06	0.15	0.74	0.13	0.29
Oman	0.18	0.14	0.44	0.56	0.37	0.21
Equatorial Guinea	0.17	0.05	0.11	0.33	0.09	0.11
Azerbaijan	0.17	0.05	0.13	0.39	0.1	0.07
Russia	0.17	0.06	0.15	0.41	0.39	0.16
Somalia	0.16	0.13	0.41	0.3	0.29	0.63
Mali	0.16	0.15	0.49	0.56	0.54	0.7
Belarus	0.16	0.04	0.09	0.77	0.14	0.06
Iran	0.16	0.1	0.32	0.5	0.1	0.28
Tajikistan	0.16	0.04	0.11	0.17	0.16	0.12
Nicaragua	0.15	0.02	0.02	0.26	0.31	0.02
Hong Kong	0.15	0.14	0.47	0.75	0.13	0.16
Turkmenistan	0.15	0.03	0.08	0.27	0.08	0.06
Vietnam	0.15	0.1	0.33	0.55	0.56	0.62
Bahrain	0.14	0.06	0.19	0.43	0.16	0.18
Kuwait	0.14	0.13	0.43	0.59	0.15	0.6
Laos	0.14	0.11	0.36	0.38	0.4	0.18
Burkina Faso	0.13	0.1	0.34	0.54	0.34	0.14
South Sudan	0.13	0.06	0.2	0.08	0.14	0.1
Sudan	0.13	0.03	0.09	0.25	0.15	0.04
Eswatini	0.13	0.1	0.32	0.25	0.37	0.2
Palestine (Gaza)	0.13	0.06	0.18	0.4	0.22	0.13
Syria	0.13	0.05	0.17	0.43	0.18	0.59
Yemen	0.13	0.04	0.12	0.09	0.23	0.11
United Arab Emirates	0.1	0.08	0.26	0.44	0.09	0.29
North Korea	0.08	0.01	0.03	0.34	0.15	0.02
Myanmar	0.08	0.02	0.04	0.2	0.14	0.12
China	0.07	0.04	0.14	0.29	0.12	0.23
Afghanistan	0.07	0.02	0.06	0.05	0.18	0.03
Eritrea	0.07	0.01	0.02	0.41	0.02	0.08
Qatar	0.03	0.09	0.35	0.39	0.13	0.47
Saudi Arabia	0.02	0.05	0.18	0.45	0.1	0.28

Regimes of the World

V-Dem maintains the Regimes of the World index, which classifies governments using data from its other indices as either a closed autocracy, electoral autocracy, electoral democracy, or liberal democracy. It is heavily inspired by Robert Dahl's theory of polyarchy based on six institutional guarantees: elected officials, free and fair elections, freedom of expression, alternative sources of information, associational autonomy, and inclusive citizenship.

Autocracies

Regimes where leaders are not de facto accountable to citizens and may lack multiparty or free and fair elections. Dahl's institutional prerequisites are not fulfilled.

Closed Autocracy

Governments which lack multiparty elections for the chief executive or the legislature, or lack any competition such as in one-party states. Legislative institutions are de facto undermined and electoral accountability is evaded.

Electoral Autocracy

Governments where the chief executive, legislature, or both are accountable in de jure multiparty elections. They fall short of democratic standards due to irregularities, limitations on party competition, and violations of Dahl's prerequisites. They are closely related to theories of electoral authoritarianism and competitive authoritarianism.

Democracies

Regimes with de facto multiparty, free and fair elections. Dahl's institutional prerequisites are at least minimally fulfilled.

Electoral Democracy

Regimes that possess the bare minimum to be considered a democracy. They are "de-facto accountable to citizens through periodic elections", but are not liberal democracies and lack further entrenched individual and minority rights beyond the electoral sphere. Basic electoral democracies may not possess a fully developed rule of law, legislative and judicial oversight of the executive branch, protections against the "tyranny of the majority", and only minimal fulfillment of Robert Dahl's institutional prerequisites for democracy.

Liberal Democracy

Regimes that possess the rule of law and satisfy liberal principles. They provide checks and balances between legislative and judicial oversight of the executive branch, limitations on government to prevent the "tyranny of the majority", protect individual liberties, and provide equal access to and protection under the law. A fully developed rule of law is essential for liberal democracies, as it ensures decisions are implemented. It is sometimes referred to as a "Madisonian" democracy.

Digital Society Project

The Digital Society Project is a subset of indicators on V-Dem's survey that asks questions about social media's political status and the internet. Specifically, the Digital Society Project measures a range of questions related to internet censorship, misinformation online, and internet shutdowns. This annual report includes 35 indicators assessing five areas: disinformation, digital media freedom, state regulation of digital media, the polarization of online media, and online social cleavages. It has been updated each year starting in 2019, with data covering from 2000–2021. Similar to other expert analyses like Freedom House, these data are more prone to false positives when compared with remotely sensed data, such as that from Access Now or the OpenNet Initiative.

Criticisms

Data on democracy, and particularly global indices of democracy, and the data they rely on, have been the subject of scrutiny and criticized by various scholars. Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen for instance, have raised concerns about the methods used by prominent democracy indices such as Freedom House and Polity, such as the concept of democracy they measured, the design of indicators, and the aggregation rule. Political scientists Andrew T. Little and Anne Meng "highlight measurement concerns regarding time-varying bias in expert-coded data" such as Freedom House and V-Dem and encourage improving expert-coding practices. Knutsen et al. did not see evidence for time-varying bias in their expert-coded data and note the application of item response theory, factor analysis and estimates of uncertainties to limit expert biases while discussing concerns in operationalization of observer-invariant measures of democracy.

Political scientist Jonas Wolff criticized V-Dem for gradually abandoning a pluralist conceptualization of democracy. According to him, V-Dem has moved away from its original emphasis on the conceptual varieties of democracy and adopted an uncontested view of democracy as liberal democracy while also ignoring the limitations of liberal democracy.

The V-Dem dataset does not cover some countries, namely: Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Brunei, Dominica, the Federated States of Micronesia, Grenada, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Tonga, Tuvalu, and the Vatican.