Joan Hoey is the Regional Director for Europe in Economist Intelligence’s Country Analysis division. She is an expert on European political economy, with a special interest in democracy, governance, political risk, global geopolitics and east European post-communist transition. Joan is the Editor of EIU's flagship annual Democracy Index, recognised by governments, international organisations, corporates and academia as a leading measure of global democracy. Before joining the Europe team at The Economist Group in 1995, Joan worked as a journalist covering the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Richard Wike is director of global attitudes research at Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, where he conducts research and writes about international public opinion on a variety of topics, such as democracy, international cooperation, and attitudes toward the United States and China. He is an author of numerous Pew Research Center reports and has written pieces for The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, the Guardian, Politico, Journal of Democracy, and other publications.