The State of Democracy assessment in Sri Lanka was part of the region-wide State of Democracy in South Asia report, the only regional report to date produced with the cooperation of experts from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The assessment was led by Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of the Department of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Colombo.
The democracy assessment in the United Kingdom has been the forerunner of the current International IDEA methodology for democracy assessments. When the idea arose to systematically assess the UK's democracy in the 1980s, the UK Democratic Audit developed a methodology and the first assessment took place in 1992. International IDEA then proposed redesigning and expanding the original framework in order to create a universal tool for assessing the quality of democracy worldwide, which became the State of Democracy Assessment Framework.
Zambia's State of Democracy assessment project was launched in 2010. Organized by the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) and the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at the University of Zambia (UNZA), it marked the culmination of extended consultations with a broad range of stakeholders and partners about the need for an assessment.
International IDEA implemented a State of Democracy assessment in Italy as a pilot study in 2002. After a decade of relevant political changes, such as the reshaping of the political parties and a change in their relationship with interest groups; a large turnover in the political elite; institutional changes at the national, regional and provincial levels; and a profound involvement in the European Union, a group of academics—with the support of International IDEA—developed an assessment on the level of democracy in Italy.
The Philippines has implemented several democracy assessments, making this country the perfect example of how the State of Democracy Assessment (SoD) Framework can be customized to assess specific topics. For the Philippines, the framework was broken down into different areas—Rule of Law and Access to Justice; Minimizing Corruption; Economic and Social Rights; Free and Fair Elections; and the Democratic Role of Political Parties—to suit the country's context and to target specific issues that lacked systematic study in the past.
International IDEA implemented the State of Democracy assessment in Peru as a pilot study in 2002. The people of Peru had long experience of political crises and the machinations of politicians and generals during the 20th century. After four military dictatorships in recent history, in the late 1990s Peru started a process to divest itself of a manipulative and authoritarian civil government and return to democratic governance.
Democracy in Pakistan has experienced long spells of military dictatorship or a blend of some aspects of democracy with authoritarianism. Democratic institutions have not developed to be fully responsive to the people's needs and aspirations. The poor quality of democracy disappoints people, and often results in the failure or derailment of the whole process. The need to strengthen and improve democracy was greatly felt in 2008 when democracy was restored in Pakistan after nearly a decade of military rule.
The State of Democracy assessment in the Netherlands was instigated by the government after the popular rejection of the EU constitution and two prominent political assassinations in 2005. These events generated political turbulence and a vibrant public debate on the functioning of political institutions and practices in the Netherlands.
As the result of a decade-long civil war that ended in 2005, the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal changed from a monarchy to a multiparty representative democratic republic in 2008. In 2004, International IDEA and the State of Democracy in South Asia/Nepal Chapter carried out a survey on the state of democracy in Nepal. Three years later, they conducted a follow-up survey to gauge changing perceptions of democracy. The 2004 assessment, done at a time of armed conflict and civil war, set a precedent for research to be performed in conflict areas, which had previously been excluded.
In 2012, the Association Marocaine de Solidarité et de Développement (AMSED), with the participation of International IDEA, carried out the State of Local Democracy from a Gender Perspective in Morocco project. This assessment took place in the context of social upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa, which have shaken the foundations of some dictatorial regimes and apparatuses in the region and prompted others to implement political reforms to promote and institutionalize democracy and human rights.
