“Economist” Democracy Index: Israel slips even before reforms

Israel has fallen six places in the ranking of “The Economist” 2022 Democracy Index from 23rd to 29th out of 165 countries ranked. Israel remains in the flawed democracy category.

The index is compiled by the researchers at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) from dozens of criteria in five areas: election processes and pluralism; human rights; governance; political participation; and political culture.

at the top of the ranking this year was Norway followed by New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The bottom countries were Syria, the Central African Republic, North Korea, Myanmar, and Afghanistan.

This year’s index found that the trend in recent years in which democracy worldwide has been eroded has been halted. 45.3% of the world’s population lives in democratic regimes but only 85 live in fully democratic countries. Over half of the world’s population lives in undemocratic regimes. 17.9% of the world’s population lives in hybrid regimes like Tunisia, Hong Kong and Mexico and 36.9% live in authoritarian regimes like Russia and China.

Regarding Israel, which slipped six places in this year’s rankings, the EIU authors wrote, “Israel’s slippage in the rankings following a small deterioration in its score is primarily attributable to the end of the brief stint in government of the Ra’am Party, the first Arab party to form part of a governing coalition in the country, after the November 2022 parliamentary election. Ra’am’s inclusion in the coalition government formed in mid-2021 led to an improvement in the indicator score for citizen control in that year. However, the formation in December of a government led by the conservative, right-wing Likud party and including a number of far-right, ethno-religious nationalist parties has put an end to this level of representation for the country’s Arab community.”

The current ranking for 2022 does not take into account the comprehensive judicial reform being considered by the Israeli government through the Knesset bill being proposed by Minister of Justice Yariv Levin. However the EIU editors write. There are also concerns that the new government may try to pass a law giving the Knesset (parliament) power to override the Supreme Court, which would undermine the separation of powers and possibly imperil civil liberties in future.

Portugal is in 28th place in the ranking, just above Israel, while the US is below Israel in 30th place.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on February 2, 2023.

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