In the map above all countries in green claim to be democracies whereas those in red don’t make the claim.
Only the 7 countries in red don’t make any claims on being democratic.
They are:
- Afghanistan
- Brunei
- Oman
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE)
- The Vatican
All other countries at least nominally claim to be democracies.
To see how that works in practices many groups such as the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy (among others) give scores to countries based on how democratic they really are.
Here’s a map based on the 2023 rankings from the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index from Wikipedia:
Finally here’s another map showing the same thing:
What do you think?
Ivan says
Hi, the map of countries self-identified as democratic is fascinating, if true. Can you provide some source for the data?
Many thanks
Jerome Grammentz says
USA is a republic, not a democracy.
Hal G Wing says
Take that right-wing talking point to a more appropriate forum.
Tharpa says
The first claim is true, the second is not.
The John Birch Society is largely responsible for spreading the misconception that being a republic changes a democracy into not being a democracy.
They are not mutually exclusive categories.