The Economist Intelligence Unit's democracy index ranks Mauritania 115th out of 167 countries, placing it in the list of states that are considered to be governed by authoritarian regimes. Despite a return to constitutional rule following the presidential election in July 2009, Mauritania's score fell slightly in the 2010 index, to 3.86, from 3.91 in 2008. However, owing to the global decline in democracy, Mauritania moved up three places in the ranking to 115th out of 167 countries. In regional terms Mauritania is ranked one place above Morocco, ranked 116th, and ten places above Algeria, ranked 125th; however, Mauritania is ranked considerably lower than Mali and Senegal, at 79th and 95th respectively.

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Poor democratic institutions

Mauritania's score has improved for electoral process since 2008, to 3 from 2.08, owing to improvements in the security of the vote during the 2009 presidential election, which took place peacefully. However, democratic processes are not well established given the country's recent history of coups, and electoral process remains the country's lowest-scoring indicator. The country's second-worst score is for political culture, which fell from 3.75 in 2008 to 3.13 in 2010 as a result of an increasing tolerance amongst the population for the president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, to bypass some institutional checks and balances in the face of the persistent political deadlock following the 2009 election. Mauritania's score for political participation has also fallen, from 4.44 to 3.89, as citizen engagement in politics has declined. Mauritania receives a slightly better score for functioning of government in view of the quality of the civil service relative to some other countries in the region, although serious shortcomings persist. In the category of civil liberties Mauritania receives a mediocre score of 5 out of 10 (with 10 being the best possible), reflecting the existence of a lively, popular and often challenging media in the country, but also the weakness of the judiciary in upholding individuals' liberties, as well as frequent repression of public demonstrations that challenge the regime. The president has recently extended an offer to opposition parties to enter into dialogue with his government, which bodes well for the ability of the opposition to influence policy and encourage political participation. Moreover, the regime will become increasingly tolerant of dissenting political expression as political stability improves. Overall, the democracy index score for Mauritania is expected to improve in 2011 and 2012 as the country organises municipal and legislative elections.

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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, is 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 indexes.

The category indexes 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 regimes:

• 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.