Democracy in the Americas

This article is about democracy in the region. For the book by Alexis de Tocqueville, see Democracy in America.

Map of V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index in the Americas for 2024

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

By country

• Chilean transition to democracy
• Democracy in Mexico
• Democracy in Venezuela

Measures of democracy

The table below shows countries in the Americas scored on 2 high-level V-Dem Democracy indices and 4 mid-level Democracy Component indices published in 2025 evaluating the state of democracy in year 2024. ^{[6] [7]}

V-Dem Democracy Indices

Country	Democracy Indices		Democracy Component Indices
	Electoral	Liberal	Liberal	Egalitarian	Participatory	Deliberative
Costa Rica	0.859	0.805	0.952	0.885	0.641	0.931
Uruguay	0.848	0.769	0.912	0.777	0.815	0.842
Chile	0.844	0.787	0.949	0.719	0.644	0.94
Canada	0.842	0.744	0.887	0.699	0.632	0.753
United States of America	0.84	0.748	0.89	0.667	0.655	0.884
Jamaica	0.803	0.684	0.848	0.787	0.604	0.731
Brazil	0.801	0.712	0.9	0.617	0.628	0.944
Barbados	0.786	0.67	0.848	0.842	0.298	0.926
Suriname	0.768	0.637	0.821	0.715	0.581	0.764
Trinidad and Tobago	0.755	0.627	0.826	0.786	0.582	0.925
Panama	0.726	0.584	0.794	0.576	0.524	0.737
Argentina	0.712	0.553	0.76	0.73	0.591	0.535
Dominican Republic	0.705	0.45	0.571	0.471	0.595	0.818
Colombia	0.701	0.557	0.779	0.528	0.634	0.645
Ecuador	0.651	0.446	0.639	0.366	0.754	0.442
Peru	0.634	0.493	0.761	0.509	0.604	0.405
Guatemala	0.597	0.469	0.768	0.327	0.594	0.594
Paraguay	0.579	0.388	0.618	0.312	0.516	0.458
Bolivia	0.576	0.314	0.461	0.593	0.628	0.473
Honduras	0.541	0.382	0.658	0.408	0.537	0.687
Mexico	0.505	0.251	0.397	0.438	0.617	0.423
Guyana	0.491	0.315	0.568	0.675	0.516	0.378
El Salvador	0.339	0.092	0.137	0.264	0.451	0.268
Haiti	0.218	0.079	0.192	0.128	0.259	0.592
Venezuela	0.197	0.049	0.101	0.263	0.492	0.023
Cuba	0.178	0.055	0.138	0.753	0.17	0.286
Nicaragua	0.153	0.019	0.022	0.271	0.295	0.017

See also

• Democracy in Africa
• Democracy in Asia
• Democracy in Europe
• Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa
• 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. Democracy Report 2024, Varieties of Democracy
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 2025, 25 Years of Autocratization – Democracy Trumped?" (PDF). Retrieved 14 March 2025.
7. "The V-Dem Dataset – V-Dem". V-Dem. V-Dem Institute. 2025. Retrieved 14 March 2025.