V-Dem Democracy Indices in the context of "Democratic backsliding by country"

Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated along the Atlantic Ocean coast. It borders Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal nearly surrounds The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow strip of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. It also shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. The capital and largest city of Senegal is Dakar.

Senegal is the westernmost country in the mainland of the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia. It owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the north and east. The climate is typically Sahelian, with a rainy season. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres (76,000 sq mi) and has a population of around 18 million. The state is a presidential republic; since the country's foundation in 1960, it has been recognized as one of the most stable countries on the African continent. On the 2024 V-Dem Democracy Indices, Senegal is ranked 68th in electoral democracy worldwide and 10th in electoral democracy in Africa.

Democracy in Africa is measured according to various definitions of democracy by a variety of indexes, such as V-Dem Democracy indices, and Democracy Index by The Economist.

The top 3 African countries ranked by V-Dem Democracy indices Electoral Democracy metric in 2024 were Cape Verde, Seychelles, and South Africa. The Freedom Index ranks states based on the protection of 'political and civil liberties and freedoms' that individuals receive including the freedom to participate in elections. In 2018, the index found that the majority of sub-Saharan African states including but not limited to Sudan, Cameroon and Ethiopia were 'not-free', while several states including but not limited to Namibia, Botswana and Ghana were pronounced 'free'.

The Polity data series is a data series in political science research. Along with the V-Dem Democracy Indices project and The Economist Democracy Index, Polity is among prominent datasets that measure democracy and autocracy.

The Polity study was initiated in the late 1960s by Ted Robert Gurr and is now continued by Monty G. Marshall, one of Gurr's students. It was sponsored by the Political Instability Task Force (PITF) until February 2020. The PITF is funded by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The V-Dem Institute (an abbreviation of Varieties of Democracy Institute), founded by Staffan I. Lindberg in 2014, is an independent research institute that serves as the headquarters of the V-Dem Project, a database that seeks to conceptualize and measure democracy. V-Dem defines democracy using seven key principles (electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, egalitarian, majoritarian, and consensual) that emphasize the concept of "rule of the people." As part of its work, it publishes a dataset known as the V-Dem Democracy Indices that is based on its key principles.

The headquarters of the project is based at the department of political science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The state of democracy in Middle East and North Africa can be comparatively assessed according to various definitions of democracy. De jure democracies in the Middle East and North Africa are according to system of government:

• Parliamentary republic: Iraq, Israel, Lebanon
• Presidential republic: Syria, Tunisia, Turkey
• Semi-presidential republic: Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania

The V-Dem Democracy indices ranked in 2024 Iraq, Israel, Mauritania and Tunisia as the Middle Eastern and North African countries with the highest democracy scores. The Economist Group's Democracy Index rated in the region Israel as the only "flawed democracy" and no country as "full democracy" for year 2023.