The 2010 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) democracy index has ranked Bhutan in the 102nd position out of 167 countries. The country has scored 4.68 points contrary to 109th position in 2008 with 4.30 points. The scores in political culture and civil liberties have remained unchanged from 2008.
Bhutan has seen such an improvement in the ranking due to better scores in the electoral process and pluralism and functioning of the government.
Siok Sian Pek Dorji, the executive director of Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy said that it was too early for Bhutan’s democracy to be pitched against other democracies around the world. She further added that Bhutan’s democracy was different as it did not come out of a crisis but was a gift from the monarch.
According to EIU, an economic and research branch of The Economist, most of the answers used for the survey are expert assessents. For some answers, public opinion surveys were carried out in the respective countries. But the report does not indicate what kind of expertise was used and how many experts were involved.
Norway, Iceland and Denmark are the top three countries on the index scoring 9.80, 9.65 and 9.52 respectively. Among SAARC countries, India has been ranked 40th, Sri Lanka 55th, Pakistan 104th, Nepal 108th and Afghanistan 150th.
The report highlights that there has been a decline in democracies across the world since 2008.
This is the third edition of the EIU democracy index.
