
Havel’s Country Is Now a Full Democracy
The hopeful news in the latest Democracy Index is that a country that endured Nazi occupation followed by a long communist dictatorship—the Czech Republic—achieved “Full Democracy” status in 2024. It now ranks among an exclusive group of 25 nations and, along with Estonia, is one of only two countries from the former Eastern Bloc that collapsed between 1989 and 1991 to reach this status.