Charted: The Relationship Between Democracy and Corruption
Description
Charting the Relationship Between Democracy and Corruption
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
- Highly democratic countries consistently report lower levels of political corruption, especially in Europe.
- No countries in the dataset are rated as both highly democratic and highly corrupt.
- Authoritarian regimes show a wide range of corruption levels, but none approach the values achieved by democracies.
How does the level of democracy in a country influence corruption?
According to new data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project and a visualization by Our World in Data, the correlation is clear: democratic societies tend to be less corrupt.
The chart maps countries across two indices: Electoral Democracy (measuring free, fair, and meaningful elections) and the Political Corruption Index (focused on bribery and public theft), both scaled from 0 to 1.
Exploring the Democracy-Corruption Correlation
Here is a full list of selected countries with their scores across both indices, based on the latest V-Dem data:
| Entity | Political Corruption Index (2024) | Electoral Democracy Index (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | 0.67 | 0.08 |
| Albania | 0.63 | 0.51 |
| Algeria | 0.67 | 0.26 |
| Angola | 0.55 | 0.34 |
| Argentina | 0.39 | 0.71 |
| Armenia | 0.37 | 0.62 |
| Australia | 0.03 | 0.86 |
| Austria | 0.11 | 0.84 |
| Azerbaijan | 0.90 | 0.18 |
| Bahrain | 0.51 | 0.12 |
| Bangladesh | 0.91 | 0.20 |
| Barbados | 0.07 | 0.79 |
| Belarus | 0.42 | 0.16 |
| Belgium | 0.03 | 0.89 |
| Benin | 0.19 | 0.50 |
| Bhutan | 0.16 | 0.56 |
| Bolivia | 0.66 | 0.58 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 0.76 | 0.51 |
| Botswana | 0.24 | 0.59 |
| Brazil | 0.44 | 0.80 |
| Bulgaria | 0.58 | 0.65 |
| Burkina Faso | 0.39 | 0.16 |
| Burundi | 0.78 | 0.18 |
| Cambodia | 0.90 | 0.19 |
| Cameroon | 0.93 | 0.29 |
| Canada | 0.03 | 0.84 |
| Cape Verde | 0.26 | 0.76 |
| Central African Republic | 0.85 | 0.30 |
| Chad | 0.95 | 0.20 |
| Chile | 0.08 | 0.84 |
| China | 0.55 | 0.07 |
| Colombia | 0.39 | 0.70 |
| Comoros | 0.84 | 0.28 |
| Congo | 0.83 | 0.25 |
| Costa Rica | 0.20 | 0.86 |
| Cote d’Ivoire | 0.62 | 0.43 |
| Croatia | 0.26 | 0.72 |
| Cuba | 0.59 | 0.18 |
| Cyprus | 0.16 | 0.77 |
| Czechia | 0.10 | 0.87 |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | 0.92 | 0.33 |
| Denmark | 0.00 | 0.92 |
| Djibouti | 0.68 | 0.25 |
| Dominican Republic | 0.71 | 0.71 |
| East Timor | 0.22 | 0.73 |
| Ecuador | 0.65 | 0.65 |
| Egypt | 0.73 | 0.19 |
| El Salvador | 0.68 | 0.34 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 0.84 | 0.18 |
| Eritrea | 0.74 | 0.07 |
| Estonia | 0.03 | 0.90 |
| Eswatini | 0.57 | 0.13 |
| Ethiopia | 0.55 | 0.26 |
| Fiji | 0.29 | 0.52 |
| Finland | 0.02 | 0.85 |
| France | 0.05 |  Comments  In Channel  Download from Google Play  Download from App Store  United States00:00 00:00 1.0x   Charted: The Relationship Between Democracy and CorruptionNick Routley |