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Countries. The Democracy-Dictatorship Index has the main regime types of "democracy" and "dictatorship" and three sub-types for each as well. Democracies can be either parliamentary, semi-presidential, or presidential and dictatorships can be civilian, military, or royal. Many countries which are seen as otherwise democratic are dictatorships ...
Current World Dictators. Here is a comprehensive, up-to-date list of the current world dictators and authoritarian regimes. In 2022 there are 57 dictatorships in the world. We define a dictator as the ruler of a land rated “Not Free” by the Freedom House in their annual survey of freedom.
Although Freedom in the World’s better-performing countries had been in retreat for several years, in 2020 it was struggling democracies and authoritarian states that accounted for more of the global decline. The proportion of Not Free countries is now the highest it has been in the past 15 years.
Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian, and they can be classified as military dictatorships, one-party dictatorships, personalist dictatorships, or absolute monarchies.
Countries with the Highest Democracy-Dictatorship Indices. Full democracy countries have the highest scores globally. The most recent data from 2022 shows 24 countries operated with full democracies, indicated by scores greater than 8.00 on the Democracy Index. Norway topped the list with a total score of 9.81.
In some of these countries, presidents and prime ministers captured personal power by banning opposition parties and building replicas of the one-party systems of the communist world. In other new countries, the armies seized power, and military dictatorships were established.
North Korea is a one-party state led by a dynastic totalitarian dictatorship. Surveillance is pervasive, arbitrary arrests and detention are common, and punishments for political offenses are severe. The state maintains a system of camps for political prisoners where torture, forced labor, starvation, and other atrocities take place.
