Open methodology
How the Democracys Score is calculated
A plain-language guide to what the score asks, how each part counts, why weak areas matter, and where the evidence is uncertain.
THE SHORT VERSION
Five equal tests. Weak links matter.
Each test contributes 20%. First, we calculate a familiar average. Then we calculate a weak-link average that falls more sharply when one part of democracy is very low. The published score blends the two.
Show the exact research formula
DPS = 100 × [0.5 × AM(E,L,P,D,Q) + 0.5 × GM(E,L,P,D,Q)]E, L, P, D, and Q stand for the five tests listed below.
A score of 72.0 does not mean a country is “72% democratic.” It is a relative estimate on this published scale.
THE INPUTS
Five public questions
We use five published V-Dem measures. Each answers a different question about who holds power and how that power is limited. We deliberately avoid overlapping headline measures so the same feature is not counted twice.
Free and fair elections
Can people choose their leaders through broad voting rights, honest elections, free political groups, and open public debate?
20%Rights and checks on power
Are basic freedoms protected, laws applied fairly, courts independent, and leaders prevented from abusing power?
20%Public participation
Can people shape public life through civic groups, direct voting, and meaningful local and regional government?
20%Public reasoning
Do leaders explain decisions, consult the public, answer opposing arguments, and consider the common good?
20%Political equality
Do different social groups have equal rights, access, resources, and a real chance to influence political power?
20%CALCULATION
Reproduce the score
Start with one place and one year
Collect all five source estimates for that place and year. If one is missing, we do not invent it and no overall score is shown.
Give every test equal weight
Each of the five tests contributes one-fifth of the score. No single test is treated as the whole meaning of democracy.
Blend, scale, and round
Average the two means, multiply by 100, then round only the published result to one decimal place.
Rank within one observation year
Rank only places with complete 2025 inputs. Rank is descriptive; it does not establish that nearby scores are meaningfully different.
UNCERTAINTY
Expert-coded evidence is estimated, not exact.
The source publishes a reasonable lower and upper estimate for each test. Country charts combine those bounds into a shaded “likely score area.” It is a visual reminder that the evidence is uncertain—not a promise that the true score must fall inside it.
Do compare broad patterns, durable gaps, and multi-year trajectories.
Do not treat a one-rank gap or a few tenths of a point as settled fact.
Do inspect the five democracy tests and original source documentation.
Do not infer a cause from a score change alone.
BOUNDARIES
What the score does not measure
- It does not judge a population, culture, religion, or national worth.
- It does not reward a political ideology or a particular policy outcome.
- It does not privilege presidential over parliamentary, federal over unitary, or proportional over majoritarian systems.
- It does not include GDP, happiness, military strength, or geopolitical alignment.
- It does not silently replace missing values with zero or splice predecessor states into current countries.
VERSION HISTORY
Method changelog
1.0 beta — initial public method
Five equal-weight V-Dem v16 inputs; 50/50 arithmetic-geometric blend; annual series calculated from 1900 through 2025; source archive fingerprint recorded.
This beta has not yet received external peer review. It should be cited as an experimental transformation, and the full historical series will be recalculated—never spliced—when a future source version is adopted.