Democracy assessments / studies / rankings are heavily flawed. They tend to look at freedom of speech, corruption & integrity of elections, while completely disregarding “legal” corruption such as lobbying, and how much influence money has on the legal process. Which is exactly what I criticized. Germany is not a democracy. It has freedom of speech, and low corruption, and relatively fair elections. However, there is a severe imbalance towards lobbyists and big corporations in the legislation.