Macedonian Democracy between “Hybrid Regime” and “Flawed Democracy”
One place up – on 72nd place – out of 167 countries, yet still at the bottom of the list of countries with “flawed democracy”. This is the ranking of North Macedonia in the latest ”Democracy Index” for 2022, published annually by the British company for business research, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
One place up – on 72nd place – out of 167 countries, yet still at the bottom of the list of countries with “flawed democracy”. This is the ranking of North Macedonia in the latest ”Democracy Index” for 2022, published annually by the British company for business research, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
Author: Vesna Kolovska
Political culture continues to be the main problem, as an area with the lowest score of only 3.13, while the Government and its (un)functioning contribute to the decline of the overall result. North Macedonia has the best score in the electoral process and pluralism – 7.83 and civil liberties – 7.35.
The overall score is 6.10, which is a fraction better than last year when the score was 6.03. For comparison purposes: in 2020 the country was ranked 78th place with a score of 5.89 belonging to the group of “hybrid regimes”, while the best ranking was in 2006, when Macedonian democracy was assigned the highest score of 6.33. The country had the worst ranking in 2016 during the change of government with a score of 5.23.
This year’s analysis of the state of affairs with democracy in North Macedonia notes that democracy ”improves marginally, from 6.03 in 2021 to 6.10 in 2022, owing to improvements in its civil liberties score, while its functioning of government score declines”.
The Parliament of North Macedonia endorsed an unpopular proposal in July that resulted in Bulgaria lifting its veto on North Macedonia’s EU accession talks. The proposal was unpopular with the public, given concerns that the concessions made to Bulgaria would undermine Macedonian national identity. At the same time, however, the country finally published the first official datasets from 2021 national census in 2022 and successfully navigated highly divisive social and political issues related to the number of ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians in the country, specifies the elaboration of the score for Macedonia.
From the countries in the region, Montenegro has advanced the most. Last year it was right behind Macedonia, while now it has the 74th place upgrading 13 places and it is ranked 61, together with Romania.
The top five countries with the best democracy are: Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden and Finland.
Russia registers the steepest decline in 2022 with the biggest fall of 22 places of the index compared to any other country. Russia’s position additionally declined in the global ranking.
The dream of restoring Russia’s position as an imperial power is foundering. After more than ten months of fighting in Ukraine, it was clear by the end of 2022 that Russia was not only losing on the battlefield, but also struggling to win the propaganda war at home and abroad, states the report on Russia.
In addition to that, the report on Russia for 2022 supplements that:
A corollary of the war has been a pronounced increase in state repression against all forms of dissent and a further personalization of power, pushing Russia towards outright dictatorship.
Russia found itself on the 147th place on the Democracy Index with a score of 2.28 in the company of countries with authoritarian regimes such as: Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Belarus.
General concern for global democracy is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also – as noted – the drug-trafficking groups, insurgencies, military leaders, hackers and other threats to sovereignty and democracy.
Threats to national sovereignty come not only from invading armies such as Russia’s, but also from non-state actors such as drug-trafficking groups, private armies, Islamist and other insurgencies and hackers committing cyber-attacks, notes the document.
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This article has been produced within the project Fact-Checking the Progress of North Macedonia towards the EU, implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation. The article, originally published by Truthmeter,, is made possible by the support of the American non-profit foundation NED (National Endowment for Democracy). The content of this article is the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Metamorphosis, NED or their partners.
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