V-Dem Institute degrades the democratic quality of Spain

The prestigious V-Dem Institute degraded the democratic quality of the Kingdom of Spain. The index, wrote by more than 3,000 academics, places Spain in place 35, below the European average. The V-Dem Institute, located at the University of Göteborg and with the support of the EU, has produced its annual report on democracy and the Spanish state records scores generally lower than the European average. The report of the V-Dem Institute is made up of three thousand academics who value 450 indicators from 178 countries. In the main section, Spain appears in the thirty-five place. Its score (0.703) places it below the European average, as well as countries such as Cape Verde or Jamaica. The figures, then, make it difficult to believe that Spain is one of only twenty full democracies in the world.

The report also offers five more detailed rankings on democratic quality. The sections are: electoral, liberal, egalitarian, participative and deliberative. In the first section, Spain still gets a lower score, the thirty-nine. Its score is 0.771, far from the first place: Estonia, 0.913. To evaluate this section, we have considered fields such as freedom of association, where Spain occupies 65th place or freedom of expression, where it occupies the 34th place.

Spain loses positions in the field of parliamentary control of the executive, where he occupies the thirty-fourth position. In the section on egalitarian democracy, Spain is ranked 26th. Fields such as distribution of power or distribution of resources are evaluated at this point. In the latter case, Spain ranks forty-one below countries such as Cuba or Georgia. In the section on participatory democracy, Spain is very far from Switzerland heading the ranking (0.876). His position is thirty-four and points especially badly in the fields of participation of civil society and direct voting. Spain occupy the 57th and 68th places, respectively. Finally, in the section on deliberative democracy, Spain stands at position 31.

See the report here.