Blog Post: How seven respected organizations assess the state of Mexico’s democracy and governance.

Here is a quick look at how seven respected organizations assess the state of Mexico’s democracy and governance.

The Bertelsmann Transformation Index, covering some 130 countries, shows Mexico dropping in its scores from 2016 to 2024. It argues that Mexico is “currently on a path of de-democratization”. In addition to other concerns, it cites attacks on independent institutions and a significant decline in Mexico’s rule of law and governance scores.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2023 ranks Mexico 90^th out of the 167 countries it studied. This study categorizes Mexico as a “hybrid” democracy, which falls below a “full” or a “flawed” democracy. It finds that Mexico’s ranking dropped 15% since 2018. It highlights the numbers of civilian deaths related to criminal violence.

International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Indices, which cover 173 countries, finds that since 2018 Mexico has declined in 12 of the 22 indicators it uses for assessing countries. The biggest declines are in parliamentary effectiveness, freedom of speech, press freedom, judicial independence, predictable enforcement, and strength of civil society.

The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Democracy Reports, which cover 202 countries, finds a notable decline in Mexico’s ratings for all of its indexes, but shows particularly large drops in V-Dem’s scores for “deliberative democracy”, “liberal democracy,” and “electoral democracy”. V-Dem cites attacks on judicial and electoral institutions, false government information, and increased polarization, among other issues.

Freedom House’s latest report of Freedom in the World, rating some 195 countries, characterizes Mexico as “partly free.” It describes a decline in freedoms beginning after 2017 and flags concerns with organized crime and violence, corruption, lack of government transparency, poor rule of law, and civil liberties more broadly.

The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index finds that Mexico’s rule of law scores declined notably between 2018 and 2023 among the 100 plus countries analyzed, with particularly bad ratings on corruption, security, and criminal justice performance.

The World Bank prepares Worldwide Governance Indicators covering over 200 countries and territories. Looking at data sets from 2012, 2017 and 2022, these indicators show Mexico’s percentile rank declined in every category over the ten years, with the largest drops in government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.

Finally, of special concern, a Pew survey of 24 countries around the world also flashed warning of declining support for democracy compared to autocracy. The Pew survey showed that support for a leader making decisions without interference from a parliament or court had growth more in Mexico than in any of the other 23 countries (up 23% from to 50% of those polled).

The key point is that expert studies covering most of the world identify similar concerns about the state of democracy and governance in Mexico.