DEMOCRACYS.ORG / COUNTRY BRIEF
Cuba
Institutions and political conditions · 2025
#151of 179 places
+0.7points since 2015
20.3–31.4source-bound score area*
What the score says
Cuba scores 26.6 on the Democracys Standard. Its score was 25.9 in 2015, a rise of 0.7 points. The lowest-scoring dimension in 2025 is public participation (13.4).
What drove the change?
The score for Cuba rose 0.7 points, from 25.9 to 26.6 between 2015 and 2025. 3 of the five areas improved while 2 worsened, so the headline combines competing movements. Participation contributed the largest upward push in the score calculation. The latest year moved in the opposite direction (−0.6), so the longer trend is not the whole story.
This explains movement within the formula, not the causal effect of political events.
2025 context · Freedom House assessment
Corruption concerns lacked independent avenues for scrutiny
Freedom House describes evidence of kleptocratic practices around a military-owned conglomerate and a lack of impartial investigations or fair trials to address allegations. The democratic mechanism is weakened accountability: claims about powerful institutions cannot be reliably tested when investigators and courts lack independence.
Read the country report · Freedom in the World 2026AI-assisted source summary · not independently expert-reviewed
What this context does—and does not—explain
This is a selected development, not a complete political history. Its date may differ from the selected comparison period. It is not evidence that one event caused a particular number of points, and it may describe progress even when this index declines.
The scores use V-Dem. The narrative summarizes a separate assessment by Freedom House, whose definitions and coverage differ. Neither organization endorses this website. The summary is AI-assisted, source-linked, and has not received independent country-expert review. Source checked October 5, 2026.
Why democracy measures can disagree →Look beneath the headline
| Democracy test | 2025 | Since 2015 |
|---|---|---|
| Free and fair elections | 17.6 | +0.8 |
| Rights and checks on power | 14.6 | −0.4 |
| Public participation | 13.4 | +2.9 |
| Public reasoning | 28.6 | +2.9 |
| Political equality | 73.7 | −5.8 |
Dimension movements are not additive contributions to the overall score. The method also accounts for weak areas.
Three questions worth investigating
- Can people shape public life through civic groups, direct voting, and meaningful local and regional government?
- Which documented changes in laws, institutions, or their implementation occurred during the period?
- What evidence challenges your explanation, and whose experience is missing?
Use primary records and country expertise. A change in an estimate alone does not identify its cause.
Read with care
This is an independent educational beta, not a V-Dem endorsement. Scores are not percentages of democracy or judgments about a people. Small differences may be within uncertainty. *The score area is obtained from source bounds; it is not a formal confidence interval for this composite or its change.