Norway leads the Index as the world’s strongest democracy, followed by Iceland and Sweden. New Zealand comes fourth, with Denmark in fifth and Canada and Ireland in joint sixth place. Switzerland, Finland and Australia round off the top ten of “full democracies.”

The Democracy Ranking analyzes several-year intervals, revealing relative ranking positions as well as changes of score levels over time. Typically, more than hundred countries are being compared in context of a specific Democracy Ranking.

Quality of Democracy = (freedom & other characteristics of the political system) & (performance of the non-political dimensions) The non-political dimensions are: gender, economy, knowledge, health, and the environment

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a UK -based company. Its intention is to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 164 are UN member states . The index was first published in 2006, with updates for 2008, 2010 and later years.