Ethiopia has slipped down the rankings in the Economist Intelligence Unit's democracy index as its score deteriorated following a landslide win for the ruling party in legislative elections in 2010. It fell from 105 to 118 in the rankings out of 167 countries surveyed, and the deterioration also meant a decline from being classified as a "hybrid regime" to "authoritarian". Democracy the world over has been in retreat over the past two years as the economic recession led to backsliding on previous progress. Yet Ethiopia has fared worse than most and shares its new classification as an authoritarian state with countries such as Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea. It is a long way behind the top African performers: Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana.

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Ethiopia has become a de facto one party state

A large part of the Ethiopia's poor showing is its score of zero in the electoral process category. The roots of this can be found in the strong crackdown by the state on post-election violence in 2005, along with an erosion of political liberties and freedoms since then, which put the country on a path towards becoming a de facto one-party state. As protestors took to the streets in 2005, opposition leaders were arrested, divided and sidelined, and 193 people died. Adding to this overt attack on opposition leaders, the government also began quietly to close the political space, in increments through the passage of restrictive laws governing media, civil society and political funding. So although there were some complaints of intimidation and violence around the 2010 polls, legislating a narrowing of political space over five years greatly reduced the need for such blunt repressive measures, allowing the ruling party to garner 545 out of 547 seats in parliament.

It is not all bad news for democracy in the country. Ethiopia scores relatively well in the categories of political culture-reflecting the strong support from the population for the role of democracy-and political participation, highlighting the number of opposition parties operating in the country. Ethiopia scores below most of its neighbours for civil liberties, indicating the recent tightening of controls over the media. The score for functioning of government is low, in part representing the lack of institutional capacity in many ministries and slow bureaucratic processes.

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Democracy index 2010: Democracy in retreat, a free white paper containing the full index and detailed methodology, can be downloaded from www.eiu.com/DemocracyIndex2010.

Note on methodology

There is no consensus on how to measure democracy and definitions of democracy are contested. Having free and fair competitive elections, and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, are the sine qua non of all definitions. However, our index is based on the view that measures of democracy that reflect the state of political freedom and civil liberties are not "thick" enough: they do not encompass sufficiently some crucial features that determine the quality and substance of democracy. Thus, our index also includes measures of political participation, political culture and functioning of government, which are, at best, marginalised by other measures.

Our index of democracy covers 167 countries and territories. The index, on a 0 to 10 scale, is based on the ratings for 60 indicators grouped in five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. The five categories are inter-related and form a coherent conceptual whole. Each category has a rating on a 0 to 10 scale, and the overall index of democracy is the simple average of the five category indices.

The category indices are based on the sum of the indicator scores in the category, converted to a 0 to 10 scale. Adjustments to the category scores are made if countries fall short in the following critical areas for democracy:

• whether national elections are free and fair;
• the security of voters;
• the influence of foreign powers on government; and
• the capability of the civil service to implement policies.

The index values are used to place countries within one of four types of regime:

• full democracies-scores of 8 to 10;
• flawed democracies-score of 6 to 7.9;
• hybrid regimes-scores of 4 to 5.9;
• authoritarian regimes-scores below 4.