Uzbekistan is ranked 148th out of 167 in the Democracy Index 2023 compiled annually by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a British research organization. The country shares this place with China.
The EIU, which has been publishing the index since 2006, assesses countries based on their scores in five categories. From the scores, the countries are further classified by types of regimes: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime.
Researchers still consider Uzbekistan as an authoritarian country, maintaining the democracy score of 2.12 out of 10 points. Those include:
Uzbekistan is still considered as an authoritarian country. The democracy score has been rated at 2.12 out of 10 for three years in a row, in 2020, 2021 and 2022, with the following distribution:
- electoral process and pluralism — 0.08 points;
- functioning of government — 1.86 points;
- political participation — 2.78 points;
- political culture — 5 points;
- civil liberties — 0.88 points.
The EIU report notes that “authoritarian” Central Asia “made little progress” last year.
Tajikistan secured the 155th position, while Turkmenistan found itself near the bottom of the ranking at 162nd. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan moved up seven places each, reaching the 109th and 120th positions, respectively.
“In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, political reform processes (implemented in response to public unrest in 2022) yielded few results in 2023. A series of constitutional reform referenda and parliamentary and presidential elections took place throughout the year. In Kazakhstan a handful of new parties emerged whose independence from the government is questionable; elections remain unfree and unfair,” the report read.
“Uzbekistan trails Kazakhstan in multiple areas of democracy, including political participation, and both nations are firmly in the authoritarian camp,” the researchers stated.
Commenting on the situation in Kyrgyzstan, the experts mentioned that the tandem of President Sadyr Japarov and the chairperson of the State Committee for National Security Kamchybek Tashiev sought to consolidate power at the expense of the country’s “hard-fought democratic gains.” “They have invested in the state security apparatus, exchanged a once-strong parliamentary system for a top-down presidential system and clamped down on dissent,” the report emphasized.
Former USSR member states
| Country | World rank | Type of regime |
| Armenia | 84 | Hybrid regime |
| Azerbaijan | 130 | Authoritarian regime |
| Belarus | 151 | Authoritarian regime |
| Georgia | 89 | Hybrid regime |
| Kazakhstan | 120 | Authoritarian regime |
| Kyrgyzstan | 109 | Authoritarian regime |
| Moldova | 68 | Flawed democracy |
| Russia | 144 | Authoritarian regime |
| Tajikistan | 155 | Authoritarian regime |
| Turkmenistan | 162 | Authoritarian regime |
| Ukraine | 148 | Hybrid regime |
| Uzbekistan | 91 | Authoritarian regime |
Worldwide
Norway has been maintaining the top line in the Democracy Index for several years in a row. New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Taiwan feature in the top ten.
Closing the rankingare Syria, the Central African Republic, North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan.
The global level of democracy dropped to 5.23 points last year (compared to 5.29 in 2022). This aligns with the overarching trend of regression and stagnation in recent years and marks a new minimum since the index was first published.
In 2023, the authors of the rating categorized 24 countries as full-fledged democracies, encompassing 7.8% of the world’s population. Additionally, 50 countries (37.6%) are considered to have flawed democracies, 34 countries (15.2%) with hybrid regimes and 59 countries (39.4%) are classified as authoritarian regimes.
