Democracy in Asia

Democracy in Asia can be comparatively assessed^[2] according to various definitions of democracy.^[3] According to the V-Dem Democracy indices, the Asian countries with the highest democracy scores in year 2025 were Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Cyprus and Sri Lanka, meanwhile the Asian countries with lowest democracy scores in 2023 are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Afghanistan.^[4] Democratic backsliding can be observed in parts of Asia.^[5] The V-Dem Democracy Report identified for the year 2025 Timor Leste, Thailand and Sri Lanka as a cases of ongoing democratization.^[1]

Measures of democracy

The table below shows Asian countries scored on V-Dem Democracy indices for year 2024.^[1]^[6]^[7]

V-Dem Democracy Indices
Country	Democracy Indices		Democracy Component Indices
Country	Electoral	Liberal	Liberal	Egalitarian	Participatory	Deliberative
Japan	0.82	0.73	0.9	0.94	0.56	0.9
South Korea	0.82	0.74	0.91	0.87	0.61	0.94
Taiwan	0.8	0.7	0.89	0.88	0.8	0.86
Sri Lanka	0.78	0.61	0.76	0.71	0.61	0.78
Cyprus	0.77	0.66	0.86	0.9	0.56	0.78
East Timor	0.74	0.55	0.71	0.58	0.56	0.7
Israel	0.69	0.59	0.85	0.78	0.6	0.71
Nepal	0.66	0.5	0.75	0.58	0.62	0.54
Armenia	0.61	0.37	0.53	0.78	0.42	0.55
Bhutan	0.57	0.46	0.79	0.81	0.55	0.9
Maldives	0.56	0.42	0.72	0.61	0.49	0.72
Mongolia	0.54	0.42	0.76	0.66	0.43	0.83
Malaysia	0.5	0.36	0.64	0.71	0.53	0.66
Papua New Guinea	0.47	0.38	0.78	0.43	0.51	0.43
Indonesia	0.46	0.3	0.56	0.45	0.57	0.74
Singapore	0.43	0.36	0.77	0.79	0.14	0.75
Thailand	0.42	0.31	0.67	0.49	0.33	0.35
Lebanon	0.42	0.27	0.54	0.5	0.42	0.76
Georgia	0.4	0.28	0.59	0.69	0.48	0.72
Philippines	0.39	0.29	0.64	0.31	0.56	0.54
India	0.38	0.26	0.57	0.41	0.54	0.57
Iraq	0.37	0.22	0.48	0.41	0.49	0.62
Kyrgyzstan	0.31	0.18	0.42	0.59	0.37	0.32
Pakistan	0.3	0.18	0.42	0.26	0.47	0.43
Turkey	0.29	0.11	0.23	0.54	0.4	0.13
Jordan	0.28	0.27	0.76	0.56	0.31	0.74
Kazakhstan	0.26	0.13	0.33	0.56	0.25	0.5
Uzbekistan	0.22	0.08	0.19	0.44	0.2	0.45
Palestine (West Bank)	0.21	0.11	0.31	0.56	0.44	0.17
Bangladesh	0.2	0.12	0.34	0.33	0.28	0.48
Cambodia	0.18	0.05	0.12	0.24	0.15	0.22
Oman	0.18	0.14	0.44	0.56	0.37	0.21
Azerbaijan	0.17	0.05	0.13	0.39	0.1	0.07
Russia	0.17	0.06	0.15	0.41	0.39	0.16
Iran	0.16	0.1	0.32	0.5	0.1	0.28
Tajikistan	0.16	0.04	0.11	0.17	0.16	0.12
Hong Kong	0.15	0.14	0.47	0.75	0.13	0.16
Turkmenistan	0.15	0.03	0.08	0.27	0.08	0.06
Vietnam	0.15	0.1	0.33	0.55	0.56	0.62
Bahrain	0.14	0.06	0.19	0.43	0.16	0.18
Kuwait	0.14	0.13	0.43	0.59	0.15	0.6
Laos	0.14	0.11	0.36	0.38	0.4	0.18
Palestine (Gaza)	0.13	0.06	0.18	0.4	0.22	0.13
Syria	0.13	0.05	0.17	0.43	0.18	0.59
Yemen	0.13	0.04	0.12	0.09	0.23	0.11
United Arab Emirates	0.1	0.08	0.26	0.44	0.09	0.29
North Korea	0.08	0.01	0.03	0.34	0.15	0.02
Myanmar	0.08	0.02	0.04	0.2	0.14	0.12
China	0.07	0.04	0.14	0.29	0.12	0.23
Afghanistan	0.07	0.02	0.06	0.05	0.18	0.03
Qatar	0.03	0.09	0.35	0.39	0.13	0.47
Saudi Arabia	0.02	0.05	0.18	0.45	0.1	0.28

v t e Democracy in Asia
Sovereign states	Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Brunei Cambodia China Cyprus Egypt Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Myanmar Nepal Oman Palestine Pakistan Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan Thailand Timor-Leste (East Timor) Turkey Turkmenistan United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Taiwan
Dependencies and other territories	British Indian Ocean Territory Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Hong Kong Macau
Category Asia portal

v t e Elections in Asia
Sovereign states	Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Brunei Cambodia China Cyprus Egypt Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Myanmar Nepal Oman Palestine Pakistan Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan Thailand Timor-Leste (East Timor) Turkey Turkmenistan United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Taiwan
Dependencies and other territories	British Indian Ocean Territory Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Hong Kong Macau
Category Asia portal

Democracy in Asia

Measures of democracy

See also

References

Related Articles