Democracy improves globally though gains are uneven, report says

Democracy is strengthening worldwide, according to a leading index, but the improvement is far from universal.

Nearly 75% of countries held firm or saw measures of democracy improve, according to the research firm EIU. The most marked growth has been in Latin America and the Caribbean, while current trends bode well for Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The finding is contested: Sweden’s V-Dem Institute last month said in its annual measure that democratic gains worldwide over the past 50 years had almost entirely been eradicated. And key countries are backsliding. EIU noted democratic declines in the US were “not abating,” while “freedom itself is at stake” in an election in Hungary this weekend, the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator argued.