LOS ANGELES, USA, 07 May. - (ANA) - The newly released 2026 Berggruen Governance Index (BGI) paints a mixed picture of global governance heading into a future of mounting shocks, finding widespread gains in public-goods provision from 2000 to 2023 even as democratic accountability edged down and state capacity showed little overall improvement.

 

The BGI, presented Wednesday by an international group of governance scholars, analyses measurable benchmarks of democratic accountability across 145 countries.

 

On a 100-point scale, the global score for democratic accountability slipped slightly from 65 in 2000 to 64 in 2023, the most recent data used in the project. The wave of democratisation observed in the closing decades of the last century has stalled in the last 15 years.

 

Democratic accountability fell in 54 countries while it improved in 48 countries.

 

Yet the BGI - a collaborative project of the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Berlin's Hertie School and the Berggruen Institute, a think tank headquartered in Los Angeles - captures remarkably widespread growth in provision of public goods.

 

Encompassing healthcare, education, infrastructure, environmental sustainability and conditions to foster employment and rising prosperity, public goods improved in 135 of the countries studied, while declining slightly in just four. The global average jumped from 58 to 69 points from 2000 to 2023.

 

The third component of what the BGI authors refer to as the "governance triangle" is state capacity, defined as the ability to tax, borrow and spend, control territory, operate scrupulous, competent bureaucracies and administer predictable rule of law. The index finds the global average ticking up from 48 to 49 points; 56 countries had increased state capacity while 57 declined.

 

The full report, ' 2026 Berggruen Governance Index - The Four Worlds of Governance (https://ucla.app.box.com/s/pjetkgv6tw9mi2m197qmnoyf1v6nxuu8) ', can be viewed and downloaded from the website of the UCLA's Luskin School.

 

AB/ANA/07 May 2026 - - -