Economist Intelligence Unit: Hungary democracy with flaws

The Democracy Index is a report published annually which ranks 167 countries according to their electoral processes, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political culture and political participation. Countries are scored in each category on a scale of 0 to 10. Based on their scores, the countries are placed into one of four types of regimes: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes or authoritarian regimes.

In the 2016 report, Hungary is again classified as a flawed democracy, the category with the most — 57 — countries. Other flawed democracies include all other EU member states in central Europe, several euro-zone member states and, for the first time, the United States, which has been demoted from a full democracy.

The 2016 Democracy Index ranked Hungary 56th with a score of 6.72 points. Hungary received its highest score, 9.17 points, in the electoral process and pluralism category. It was given 7.06 points for civil liberties, 6.07 points for the functioning of government and 6.88 points for its political culture. Hungary’s lowest score was 4.44 points, in the category of political participation.

Last year Hungary was ranked 54th, tied with the Philippines, with an overall score of 6.84 points.