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Take it with a pinch of salt.
It's a politically biased study, not a neutral scientific study (Unscientific in its parameters for what constitutes a democracy). It's another case of a burger-eagle institute study.
That is not to say that democracy is on a global decline. The study captures that but still it's baseline is flawed.
How does one scientifically define a democracy?
A first step would be to make a basis for your study an ideological interpretation of democracy.
You can quickly see if such studies are burger-eagle institute studies by looking at a few key examples. Compare Switzerland and Cuba. Some of the most democratic nations to have ever existed. Yet Cuba is always rated far worse because it's in opposition to the cultural hegemony of the west. I.e. then a study uses a western definition of democracy that skews heavily in favour of some statistics while completely ignoring others. For example how democratic an economy is run is almost never any observed factor for democracy indexes. Then other things are weighted out of ideological bias, for example more parties = more democracy. Completely ignoring that party democracies are not the only form of democracy.
I agree that cultural hegemony plays a huge role in how studies consider concepts like democracy, and that this can lead to problems in the analysis — it sounds like we're on the same page about that. What I'm struggling with is what you would consider to be a neutral, scientific study? Because even if we agree that this study sets out its baseline poorly enough that we should take it's findings with plenty of salt, I am unclear on how one could set a baseline in a manner that's objective.
Your point comparing Switzerland and Cuba is a good example here. You highlight that ideological values reveal themselves in which statistics are chosen to include, and which are ignored. My question is whether it's possible to do objective research in these areas at all; if one were to take into account the pressure of cultural hegemony in defining democracy, and instead included commonly ignored statistics in one's analyses as part of an effort to produce counter hegemonic research, isn't that just as politically biased as the study in the OP?
Zooming out a bit, my wider question is not just about whether we can analyse things like democracy in an objective, scientific manner, but also whether we should. Science is often rhetorically leveraged to "objectivity launder" issues, which is especially problematic because that involves ignoring how Western science itself is borne of imperialist and classist systems, and often perpetuates elements of these (especially when people buy into the idea that "objective science" is a thing that exists, which I don't).
You're a glass-half-full kind of person.
More of a "the bottom of the glass has cracks and is gonna leak any moment" person.