Bulgaria has continued the trend of dropping down the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy index, being ranked 52th with an index of 6.78 in the 2011 edition. In the 2010 EIU study, Bulgaria shared the 51th place with Argentina with an index of 6.84. In the past years, Bulgaria has been in the range of "flawed democracy", the second-tier democratic countries as per the EIU's classification. For 2011, Bulgaria's indexes for political culture and functioning of government, part of the democracy index, have received spectacularly low ratings - at 4.38 and 5.71 out of 10, respectively. Political participation also has a comparatively low grade at 6.11, while electoral processes and pluralism, as well as civil liberties are rated high, at 9.17 and 8.53, respectively. In the 2011 report, countries such as Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand have retained the position of the world's best democracies. EU members Portugal (27th place), France (29th), Italy (31th) and Greece (32th) are also ranked as "flawed democracies", while Romania follows Bulgaria (59th place).