Azerbaijan is classified as an authoritarian country, with an overall score of 2.68, placing the global ranking just above Cuba.
Since the start of the Index publication in 2006, the country has declined 0.63 points but kept the same position as last year.
In the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, the Democracy Index shows that there are still no full democracies in the region, which means that no country is placed within the first 20 of the ranking. There are 16 in the “flawed democracies’’ classification (EU eastern member states, Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro), four in “hybrid regimes” (Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine), and eight countries classified as “authoritarian regimes” (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia and all Central Asian states).
In the regional grouping, Azerbaijan is positioned between Kazakhstan and Belarus.
The maximum overall score is 10 and countries are evaluated in 5 individual categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties. Each one of them also works on a 0 to 10 points basis.
Regarding electoral process and pluralism, Azerbaijan got 0.50 point. In the other categories, it scored below 3, with the exception of political culture (5 points).
The report attributes the overall dissatisfactory score of Azerbaijan to the on-going repressive policies of the government, its expansion of undemocratic practices and repression of the political opposition.
To read the full report, click here.
