Bangladesh exhibited low-level performance across three major inherent components of democracy over five years between 2019 and 2024, according to the Global State of Democracy Report 2025, launched by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) on Thursday.
The report, which covers the period from January 2019 to December 2024, used four categories – representation, rights, rule of law, and participation – to determine the state of democracy in 173 countries worldwide. According to these categories, European countries continue to dominate democracy rankings.
Bangladesh displayed low performance in the representation, rights, and rule of law indicators, while showing mid-range performance in participation, the report said.
“Over the past five years, it (Bangladesh) has experienced declines in representation, credible elections, elected government, and effective parliament, but has seen advances in freedom of expression, economic equality, rule of law, predictable enforcement, and personal integrity and security,” it added.
Bangladesh showed its worst performance in the field of representation, ranking between 151 and 173, plummeting 24 positions from the previous report.
Commenting on Bangladesh’s performance, the report said: “The reasons for the declines are multifaceted: some can be attributed to the repressive policies of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, while others, such as the decline in elected government, are a result of the temporary replacement of an elected, if authoritarian, government with an interim unelected one.”
“The ongoing reform processes being carried out by the current government to reset Bangladeshi democracy following Hasina’s resignation and flight from the country, as well as the general election due to be held by early 2026, may reverse or reinforce some of these trends,” it added.
Bangladesh is not alone in seeing democratic indicators underperform. Democracy is weakening across the world.
“In 2024, 94 countries—representing 54 per cent of all countries assessed—suffered a decline in at least one factor of democratic performance compared with their own performance five years earlier. In contrast, only 55 countries (32 per cent) advanced in at least one factor over that period,” said the executive summary of the report.
“Today, the state and fate of democracy in the world is perhaps more uncertain than it has been in our lifetimes,” IDEA Secretary-General Dr Kevin Casas-Zamora said in the preface to the report.
“In addition to this macro trend, this year’s Global State of Democracy report reveals democratic instability at a thematic level. Representation is the strongest aspect of democracy overall, according to International IDEA’s indices. Yet, amid an unprecedented 74 national elections in 2024, representation scores collapsed to their worst level in over 20 years, with seven times more countries declining than advancing,” he added.
The report also stated that press freedom experienced its sharpest fall in the last 50 years.
