library(htmltab)

## Warning: package 'htmltab' was built under R version 4.0.2

# comentario: usar comillas con el link:

linkPage='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index'
linkTabla='//*[@id="mw-content-text"]/div/table[2]/tbody' # el XPATH
democracy = htmltab(doc = linkPage,which =linkTabla) 

names(democracy)

##  [1] "Rank >> Rank"                                                    
##  [2] "Country >> Country"                                              
##  [3] "Score >> Score"                                                  
##  [4] "Electoral processand pluralism >> Electoral processand pluralism"
##  [5] "Functio­ning ofgovern­ment >> Functio­ning ofgovern­ment"    
##  [6] "Politicalpartici­pation >> Politicalpartici­pation"            
##  [7] "Politicalculture >> Politicalculture"                            
##  [8] "Civilliberties >> Civilliberties"                                
##  [9] "Regimetype >> Regimetype"                                        
## [10] "Region >> Region"                                                
## [11] "Changes fromlast year >> Changes fromlast year"