Bangladesh has advanced four notches on the latest Democracy Index 2018 of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis division of The Economist Group and the world leader in global business intelligence.
Bangladesh has been ranked 88th with an overall score of 5.57 on the index, compared to the 92nd position with a score of 5.43 a year ago, according to the EIU of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper, UK.
Asia recorded the highest improvement in its score out of any region.
The index reveals that despite a growing disillusionment with formal political institutions, political participation is on the rise in almost every region around the world, with the population being spurred into political action.
Assessing the global state of democracy in 2018, the EIU reveals that in the past decade, women’s political participation has improved more than any other single indicator in the model.
Once again, Norway came out on top and North Korea bottom. One of the more notable moves was that of Costa Rica, the only country to join the ranks of “full democracies” in 2018, and to break into the top 20, rising three places from 23rd to 20th.
Western Europe continues to feature heavily among the index’s “full democracies”; apart from North Korea, the bottom 20 features countries from the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe heavily.
Little change was felt in Asia’s two largest democracies: India (ranked 41st) and Indonesia (65th), both are readying themselves for elections in 2019.
Sri Lanka fell back more than any other country in the region. It saw a marked decrease in its score from 6.48 in 2017 to 6.19, driven by a worsening in the functioning of government and in civil liberties.
The country plunged into a constitutional crisis in late October when the president, Maithripala Sirisena, announced the dismissal of the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, replacing him with an ally, Mahinda Rajapaksa (who served as president in 2005-15).
China rose nine places in the global ranking, although it remains classified as an authoritarian regime and its climb in the index mainly reflects the worsening scores of other countries in the index, particularly in Latin America and Eastern Europe.
