By Ellen Francis, The Washington Post, February 10, 2022
The world’s overall score on the state of democracy has fallen to 5.28 out of 10, the lowest rating since the EIU started producing the index in 2006.
A new report from the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which conducts an annual Democracy Index survey rating 167 countries based on measures including electoral processes and civil liberties, found pandemic restrictions had impacted personal freedoms.
Of special interest, the Washington Post reports the survey registered a “notable decline” for Canada, one that had caused the country to lose its ranking in the top 10.
A separate poll, the Post notes, found around only 10 percent of Canadians felt they had a “great deal” of freedom of choice and control. A more worrying trend revealed “disaffection among Canada’s citizens with traditional democratic institutions and increased levels of support for non-democratic alternatives.”
The report found civil liberties throughout the world had taken a hit from the implementation of lockdowns and travel bans as a result of coronavirus measures. Such measures, said the report, had “led to the normalization of emergency powers, which have tended to stay on the statute books, and accustomed citizens to a huge extension of state power over large areas of public and personal life.”