Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean

Map of V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index in Latin America and the Caribbean for 2023

0.900–1.000   0.800–0.899   0.700–0.799   0.600–0.699

0.500–0.599   0.400–0.499   0.300–0.399   0.200–0.299

0.100–0.199   0.000–0.099   No data

The Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean can be compared ^[1] according to the different definitions of democracy. ^[2] The V-Dem Democracy indices considers the Latin American and Caribbean countries with the highest democracy scores in 2023 as Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Jamaica and countries with lowest democracy scores as Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. ^[3] Democratic backsliding can be observed in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. ^{[4] [5]} Democratization is reported by V-Dem Democracy Report 2024 in Brazil, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Bolivia. ^[6]

Measures of democracy

The table below shows Latin American and Caribbean countries scored on 2 high-level V-Dem Democracy indices and 4 mid-level Democracy Component indices published in 2024 evaluating the state of democracy in year 2023. ^{[6] [3] [7]}

V-Dem Democracy Indices (14th edition)

Country	Democracy Indices		Democracy Component Indices
	Electoral	Liberal	Liberal	Egalitarian	Participatory	Deliberative
Costa Rica	0.868	0.816	0.953	0.886	0.648	0.945
Uruguay	0.845	0.77	0.922	0.821	0.768	0.849
Argentina	0.84	0.69	0.803	0.769	0.616	0.696
Chile	0.838	0.786	0.956	0.723	0.661	0.939
Jamaica	0.798	0.678	0.847	0.829	0.59	0.807
Barbados	0.796	0.678	0.849	0.825	0.295	0.887
Brazil	0.784	0.692	0.887	0.592	0.643	0.925
Trinidad and Tobago	0.753	0.635	0.84	0.788	0.577	0.928
Suriname	0.753	0.631	0.837	0.713	0.572	0.773
Panama	0.73	0.571	0.76	0.541	0.518	0.737
Colombia	0.704	0.565	0.793	0.528	0.648	0.695
Peru	0.699	0.576	0.819	0.519	0.622	0.506
Dominican Republic	0.685	0.438	0.577	0.46	0.595	0.837
Ecuador	0.646	0.467	0.689	0.488	0.759	0.54
Bolivia	0.586	0.353	0.53	0.595	0.632	0.541
Paraguay	0.579	0.426	0.697	0.315	0.535	0.493
Honduras	0.534	0.394	0.695	0.389	0.544	0.675
Mexico	0.534	0.299	0.476	0.452	0.654	0.545
Guyana	0.512	0.332	0.578	0.686	0.513	0.38
Guatemala	0.505	0.309	0.536	0.294	0.489	0.46
El Salvador	0.388	0.111	0.151	0.315	0.469	0.261
Haiti	0.214	0.066	0.152	0.128	0.259	0.597
Venezuela	0.211	0.055	0.115	0.285	0.482	0.067
Cuba	0.176	0.058	0.151	0.771	0.236	0.3
Nicaragua	0.17	0.027	0.042	0.306	0.28	0.033

See also

• Democracy in Venezuela
• Democratic backsliding by country – Americas

References

1. Geissel, Brigitte; Kneuer, Marianne; Lauth, Hans-Joachim (2016). "Measuring the quality of democracy: Introduction". International Political Science Review. 37 (5). Sage Publications: 571–579. doi:10.1177/0192512116669141. ISSN   0192-5121. JSTOR   26556872. S2CID   151808737 . Retrieved 2023-04-03.
2. Greenwood, Shannon (2022-12-06). "Appendix A: Classifying democracies". Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
3. V-Dem Institute (2024). "The V-Dem Dataset" . Retrieved 7 March 2024.
4. Hellinger, Daniel C. (2020). Comparative Politics of Latin America. doi:10.4324/9781003021865. ISBN   978-1-003-02186-5.
5. Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Compilation of Selected Indices, Carla Y. Davis-Castro, Congressional Research Service, accessed 2023
6. Democracy Report 2024, Varieties of Democracy
7. Coppedge, Michael; et al. (2020). Varieties of Democracy. doi:10.1017/9781108347860. ISBN   978-1-108-34786-0.