Democracy in Europe

Democracy in Europe can be comparatively assessed^[1] according to various definitions of democracy.^[2] According to the V-Dem Democracy Indices, the European countries with the highest democracy scores in 2023 are Denmark, Norway and Sweden, meanwhile the European countries with lowest democracy scores in 2023 are Belarus, Russia and Turkey.^[3]

Map of V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index for 2024 in Europe

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

Changes in democracy

After the fall of Communism most countries in Central and Eastern Europe either democratized or re-democratized.^[4] Some democratic backsliding can be observed in parts of Europe, including Hungary and Poland.^[5][6] The V-Dem Democracy Report identified for the year 2023 Montenegro and Kosovo as cases of stand-alone democratization and North Macedonia as a case of U-Turn democratization, while Poland as a small but statistically insignificant uptick in liberal democracy index.^[7] Some view European democracies have become more consensual and less majoritarian over time.^[8] Increased importance of constitutionalism has been claimed.^[9]

Measures of democracy

The table below shows European countries scored on 2 high-level V-Dem Democracy indices and 4 mid-level Democracy Component indices evaluating the state of democracy in year 2024 which were published in 2025.^[10][11][12]

V-Dem Democracy Indices (15th edition)

Country	Democracy Indices		Democracy Component Indices
	Electoral	Liberal	Liberal	Egalitarian	Participatory	Deliberative
Denmark	0.916	0.883	0.976	0.97	0.713	0.965
Estonia	0.895	0.85	0.961	0.901	0.634	0.868
Ireland	0.895	0.83	0.932	0.87	0.633	0.905
Switzerland	0.894	0.847	0.962	0.937	0.881	0.984
Belgium	0.886	0.805	0.908	0.93	0.643	0.887
Norway	0.884	0.839	0.962	0.959	0.656	0.986
Sweden	0.881	0.845	0.978	0.907	0.653	0.908
Czech Republic	0.87	0.817	0.952	0.91	0.59	0.873
Luxembourg	0.867	0.783	0.903	0.937	0.568	0.971
France	0.866	0.799	0.93	0.824	0.635	0.938
Finland	0.847	0.802	0.966	0.865	0.645	0.922
Iceland	0.844	0.759	0.907	0.908	0.662	0.902
Austria	0.839	0.762	0.918	0.862	0.624	0.851
Germany	0.839	0.792	0.963	0.931	0.653	0.98
Latvia	0.838	0.765	0.922	0.866	0.661	0.822
United Kingdom	0.833	0.752	0.91	0.784	0.637	0.867
Portugal	0.831	0.751	0.91	0.799	0.609	0.891
Spain	0.829	0.745	0.906	0.839	0.635	0.841
Netherlands	0.822	0.761	0.944	0.893	0.62	0.893
Italy	0.803	0.705	0.882	0.902	0.748	0.865
Lithuania	0.799	0.734	0.936	0.877	0.679	0.809
Malta	0.785	0.637	0.797	0.892	0.637	0.8
Cyprus	0.774	0.651	0.839	0.902	0.566	0.831
Slovakia	0.752	0.584	0.754	0.766	0.648	0.37
Greece	0.75	0.576	0.741	0.875	0.638	0.83
Poland	0.729	0.616	0.844	0.879	0.614	0.842
Croatia	0.723	0.619	0.862	0.779	0.624	0.681
Slovenia	0.716	0.619	0.869	0.886	0.746	0.861
Kosovo	0.651	0.473	0.692	0.675	0.468	0.55
Bulgaria	0.646	0.508	0.77	0.603	0.669	0.837
Moldova	0.632	0.518	0.807	0.784	0.666	0.798
Romania	0.629	0.445	0.67	0.679	0.621	0.32
Armenia	0.623	0.414	0.61	0.802	0.411	0.688
Montenegro	0.615	0.478	0.755	0.76	0.581	0.724
North Macedonia	0.563	0.374	0.61	0.596	0.588	0.587
Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.508	0.342	0.613	0.653	0.517	0.614
Albania	0.507	0.396	0.742	0.673	0.537	0.418
Georgia	0.48	0.328	0.615	0.726	0.507	0.751
Hungary	0.436	0.318	0.654	0.635	0.534	0.309
Ukraine	0.389	0.233	0.486	0.638	0.575	0.791
Serbia	0.315	0.22	0.544	0.736	0.552	0.494
Turkey	0.288	0.117	0.255	0.539	0.422	0.182
Azerbaijan	0.175	0.054	0.133	0.34	0.102	0.093
Russia	0.172	0.056	0.143	0.371	0.376	0.109
Belarus	0.161	0.036	0.081	0.764	0.146	0.06

By country

Further information: Democratic backsliding by country – Europe and Democratization § Democratization by country

Azerbaijan

See also: Corruption in Azerbaijan

Ahead of the 2024 Azerbaijani presidential election, Amnesty International reported an increased crackdown on the right to freedom of expression, repression of peaceful dissent, a coordinated assault on civil society, and the targeting of critical voices by President Ilham Aliyev.^[13]

Belarus

See also: Belarusian opposition

Unfair elections were reported in Belarus.^[14]

Georgia

Electoral fraud was reported at the 2024 Georgian parliamentary election.^[15]

Russia

Unfair elections were reported in Russia due to political repression^[16] and allegations of electoral fraud. Lack of freedom of the press resulted that most of Russians believe that the elections in Russia are mostly fair.^[17]

Serbia

At 2023 Serbian parliamentary election electoral fraud was reported.^[18]

Turkey

Limited political freedom of the press is reported in Turkey.^[19]

See also

• Act of Independence of Lithuania (1918)
• Athenian Revolution
• Age of Liberty (Sweden)
• Constitution of Norway (1814)
• Constitution of the Netherlands (1815)
• Constitution of Belgium (1831)
• Constitution of Denmark (1849)
• Czechoslovak declaration of independence (1918)
• Democracy in Africa
• Democracy in the Americas
• Democracy in Asia
• Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa
• Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union)
• End of World War II in Europe
• Estonian Declaration of Independence (1918)
• French Revolution
• Glorious Revolution
• Magna Carta
• Greek transition to democracy (Metapolitefsi)
• Overthrow of the Roman monarchy
• People's Council of Latvia (1918)
• Politics of Europe
• Portuguese transition to democracy
• Representation of the People Act 1884
• Revolutions of 1848
• Revolutions of 1989
• Romanian revolution
• Rose Revolution
• Second Spanish Republic
• Second Polish Republic
• Singing Revolution
• Spanish transition to democracy
• Switzerland as a federal state
• Weimar Republic
• 1907 Finnish parliamentary election
• 1924 Greek republic referendum
• 1946 Italian institutional referendum
• 1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution
• 2018 Armenian Revolution