Democracy linked to freedom
Comparing Deliberative Democracy Index with Free country across 172 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.87
- Holding size constant
- +0.84
- Countries compared
- 172
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
A strong correlation between deliberative democracy and freedom might be due to shared underlying factors like education or cultural values. A careful reader should consider the potential influence of a likely confounder, such as economic development. The relationship could be driven by these broader societal factors rather than a direct link between the two indicators.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. This correlation could mislead by implying a causal relationship between democracy and freedom, when in fact they might both be symptoms of a broader societal health.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.