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Albania, a hybrid democracy, The Economist Intelligence Unit says

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17 years ago
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TIRANA, Jan 19 – The Economist Intelligence Unit, in a report last weekend, listed Albania’s political system as a hybrid between democracy and totalitarianism.
The Economist Intelligence Unit Index on Democracy ranked Albania and Bosnia as the least democratic countries in the Balkans. Both countries came in at no. 81 out of 167 countries polled around the world.
Although almost half of the world’s countries can be considered democracies, the number of “full democracies” is relatively low, with only 30 making the grade, while 50 states are rated as “flawed democracies.” Of the remaining 87 states, 51 are authoritarian and 36 are considered to be “hybrid regimes.”
The study looks at five key factors to calculate the rankings in the index; electoral process and pluralism, political participation, political culture and civil rights.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s measure of democracy, half of the world’s population now lives in a democracy of some sort. In recent years, there have been few advances and several setbacks, and the spread of democracy appears to have come to a halt.

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