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the show notes to find out more. Hello and welcome to The Bunker, your daily update on news and politics. I'm Ros Taylor.

Whatever the Greeks might have thought, full democracy is a pretty recent invention. Still,

for decades, a lot of us assume the world would gradually get more democratic.

That illusion is over.

Whatever on earth is happening in the US, it's concentrated people's minds.

But democracies have been in gradual retreat since 2007.

And according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's annual report, only 25 countries are now

for democracies. Britain is one of them, but you may be surprised at some of the countries

that aren't. And to talk about that report, we have Chief Economist at the Economist

Intelligence Unit, Constance Hunter. Constance, thanks so much for joining us. Oh, it's my pleasure.

Wonderful to join you today. Your report is, well, sobering isn't quite the word. I kept having to do

double-takes as I realized quite how bad things have got, not least because half the world's

population voted in elections last year. Which countries did you find

slid into authoritarianism last year? Well, I was put voted in quotes, for starters. So Russia had an

election and we know that that wasn't a fully free and fair election, and Russia is not categorized

as a democracy. But we also had India voting, and there was a lot of concern going into that

election that India would not have as free of fair election as it did, right? You know, India had some really good results

from its opposition party, which although Modi won, I would say his victory is even more solid

because he allowed there to be opposition. And you say France is no longer a full democracy, which might come as a shock

to some listeners. Why did you find that? Well, I think maybe it would be helpful to take a step back

...