Albania has been ranked as an “electoral autocracy” alongside Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Russia in a recent report from Varieties of Democracy.
The report quantified over 30 million pieces of data from 2020 countries using the skills of some 3700 scholars and country experts. It analysed hundreds of different attributes to come up with a list that categorises countries as per their kind of democracy.
Liberal democracies are considered the best and include countries such as Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Finland. Electoral democracies are next with countries like Croatia, Kosovo, Austria and Portugal. Next is the electoral autocracies where Albania sits, and last are closed autocracies comprising Afghanistan, China, Lobya, and Saudi Arabia.
Electoral autocracies are the most common and harbour the largest share of the world’s population, some 3.4 billion people.
Electoral autocracy refers to a system of democratic government in which the constitutional machinery that is mandated to provide transparent system of governance have failed to give the required outcome.
In other words, it means that while democratic frameworks are there on paper, this does not mean elections are free and democracy thrives.
Albania was given a total of 82 points, with 200 being the worst and 1 being optimum. It lost points from 2021, suggesting the country is falling further towards closed autocracy than electoral democracy.
