Latin America is under authoritarian threat

L atin america is the most democratic region of the developing world. But it has long been heading in the wrong direction. Its score on the Democracy Index, a yearly ranking by eiu, our sister company, has declined for seven consecutive years. It has recorded the biggest democratic recession of any region over the past 20 years (eiu includes Central America and the Caribbean in this region). Some countries are exceptions but, as our map below reveals, Latin America’s biggest ones are governed by authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes and “flawed democracies” (those that have ineffective governance and low political participation). eiu assesses countries in five categories of democratic health and uses cumulative scores to class governments on a ten-point scale ranging from full democracy to autocracy. Latin America maintains a higher score than all regions apart from North America and Western Europe. But no other region’s score has fallen by as much since 2008 (see chart). In 2022 it fell b

L atin america is the most democratic region of the developing world. But it has long been heading in the wrong direction. Its score on the Democracy Index, a yearly ranking by eiu, our sister company, has declined for seven consecutive years. It has recorded the biggest democratic recession of any region over the past 20 years (eiu includes Central America and the Caribbean in this region). Some countries are exceptions but, as our map below reveals, Latin America’s biggest ones are governed by authoritarian or “hybrid” regimes and “flawed democracies” (those that have ineffective governance