Uzbekistan has posted progress in the latest Democracy Index published by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) climbing three places to 156th among 167 countries.
It should be noted Uzbekistan had occupied the 159th notch since 2012, while slightly improving in this year’s report.
Kazakhstan took the 144th place, while Tajikistan was 159th, Turkmenistan – 162nd and Kyrgyzstan – 98th.
There was little change at the very top and the very bottom of the index. 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, SubSaharan Africa and eastern Europe heavily.
The EIU is the research and analysis division of UK-based The Economist Group, a sister concern to The Economist newspaper.
The 2018 Democracy Index categorised 20 countries as “full democracies”, 55 “flawed democracies”, 39 “hybrid regimes” and 53 “authoritarian regimes” with Western Europe having the most number of ‘fully democratic’ countries.
