New Zealand is the world's 4th most democratic country, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit:
New Zealand remains the world's fourth most democratic country, while the United States remains a "flawed democracy", the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) says.
According to the EIU's 2018 Democracy Index, New Zealand is one of 20 full democracies in the world. As often happens with such lists, top places are dominated by Scandinavian countries, with Norway rated most democratic, followed by Iceland and Sweden, while Denmark is fifth and Finland eighth.
Canada and Ireland share sixth, Australia is ninth, Germany 13th, and the United Kingdom 14th.
The US was in 25th place, having dropped from 21st in 2017, although the decline was partly to do with improvements in some other countries, the EIU said.
This is good, but our score hasn't shifted at all since last year, and its something we can still do better on. OTOH, at least it didn't decrease, unlike the US.
