HUMAN CAPABILITIES INDEX
Liberty × Human Development: Nicaragua
77.4
HCI Score
8
Liberty Score
+69.4
Gap (HCI leads Liberty)
Capable Autocracy
Quadrant Classification
LIBERTY × HCI: ALL 91 COUNTRIES
CAPABLE AUTOCRACY FREE & CAPABLE NEITHER FREE BUT STRUGGLING LIBERTY SCORE → HCI SCORE → 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 r = 0.619 Saudi Arabia Mali Singapore Somalia Norway Nicaragua
HCI TRAJECTORY (1800–2023)
0 20 40 60 80 100 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2023 37.7 77.4 Year HCI Score
KEY INDICATORS — PERCENTILE RANK AMONG 91 COUNTRIES
75th + 50–74th 25–49th Below 25th INDICATOR VALUE RANK 50th Gender Dev. Index 0.980 60th Life Satisfaction 5.9 /10 53rd Voter Turnout 65 % 53rd Life Expectancy 76 yrs 50th Infant Mortality ↓ 14 /1k 31st Adult Literacy 83 % 23rd GDP/Capita (PPP) $5,500 $ 20th Electricity Access 88 % 20th Mean Schooling 6.8 yrs 19th Safe Water Access 79 % 13th ↓ = lower is better (inverted percentile). Sorted by rank, highest first. Rank among 91 countries.
LIBERTY–CAPABILITY INSIGHT
With a Liberty score of just 8 but an HCI of 77.4, Nicaragua exhibits one of the largest capability-liberty gaps in the dataset (+69.4 points). This extreme decoupling — high human development under authoritarian governance — defines the “capable autocracy” archetype. The historical pattern suggests these regimes can sustain material progress for decades, but the correlation data (r = 0.619) implies a long-run gravitational pull toward either liberalization or capability erosion.
Data: Human Capabilities Index (HCI) — 15 indicators, 91 countries, 1800–2023. Pearson r (Liberty × HCI) = 0.619. Download full dataset (XLSX) · JSON API