What Type of Liberal Democracy is Your Country? Take the Quiz!

Read more here: Categorizing Democracies Across the Globe: The 3 Types - Consociational, Third-Wave Startups & Advanced Democracies

Notes:

The Democracy Type Scale operationalizes Professor Samuel Huntington's Three Waves of Democracy (the first between 1840 and 1890, the second, 1900-1945, and the third, after the Cold War ended in 1991). The categories explain factors that affect the scope and depth of liberal democracy in the respective countries based on their level of democratic discourse and its consolidation.
Olam Research's Democracy Type Scale gives character to the fundamental factors through constitutional law theory and practice, with emphasis on World War II, Post-1945 independence of states, and the Cold War.
Factors considered in categorizing states in the Quiz include: (1) independent sovereign unionization, (2) rule of law conventions and statutes, (3) effective separation of powers, and (4) universal civil liberties.  

The three 'types' of liberal democracy on this Scale are: 

1. Consociational Democracies: The classic democracies of Huntington's second wave with constitutional arrangements between 1900 and 1945 (in some cases, up to 1949). These states used their constitutional arrangements to steer their affairs through the Cold War before consolidating them after 1991. 

2. Third Wave Democracy Startups: These are democracies that started afresh after 1991 and practically developed most or all their democratic statutes and conventions after the Cold War.

3. Advanced Democracies: These are states that had liberal democracy constitutions before 1890. They include leading economies mostly in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. 

Disclaimer: This is NOT  an absolute classification of all democracies in the world. There are states that might not fit into these categories accurately, while others might have contested assertions on pivotal pointers of this scale. Thus, other interpretations of democratic classifications could reasonably explain departures. Also, this scale does not take into account the quality of liberal democracy in states at present or in the past. It only shows the evolutionary processes and indicators relating to the level of entrenchment and functionality of democracy in recent states. Olam Research is not responsible for the data a user feeds into this app.  

Democracy Type Scale Version: 1.0.1.
Released: May 5, 2025.