
Democracy Index 2016 - DyslexicAtheist
https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2016
======
Apocryphon
For their 2018 report, Freedom House gave the U.S. three points less:

[https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/united-
st...](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/united-states)

Even that bastion of conservatism admits there was fishiness in the previous
elections.

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leereeves
> ... because of a further erosion of trust in government and elected
> officials there.

Is that a sign that the US is becoming less Democratic or a sign that
Americans are becoming wiser?

Are politicians in higher ranked countries more trustworthy, or are their
misdeeds less well known?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
_Being too cynical and pleasantly surprised is not more sophisticated than
being too idealistic and disappointed._

[https://twitter.com/jonlovett/status/889931964144246784?lang...](https://twitter.com/jonlovett/status/889931964144246784?lang=en)

~~~
leereeves
As a cynic I'm rarely pleasantly surprised, unfortunately.

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lostlogin
Note that this predates the current presidency.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Am I the only one surprised they ever made it to full democracy?

First-past-the-post voting and the dysfunctional 2 party states it engenders
would be enough for me to mark it down, never mind the new Jim crow,
gerrymandering, funding model, popular vote not counting etc.

~~~
refurb
Are you kidding? Your preferred candidate doesn't win and suddenly the system
is rigged?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's the "suddenly" part that I'm taking issue with. The problems with
American democracy are well documented and yes "rigged" is term that
objectively applies to it over many decades in many different ways.

Electoral reform is underrated, I think people can't quite imagine how
different things would be under voting regimes where every voter can help you,
even if you're their 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice. This means that people work on
projects with broad appeal, and have less incentive to demonise the people
that will never vote for them. Just the fact that you can assume I'm on "the
other team" from my comment is part of the problem.

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rukittenme
What is the definition of a "Flawed Democracy" versus "Full Democracy" (as
defined by The Economist)? I can't view the paper because I don't have an
account.

~~~
fnordsensei
"Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic
civil liberties are honored but may have issues (e.g. media freedom
infringement). Nonetheless, these nations have significant faults in other
democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of
participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index)

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dalbasal
I think we are (in 2018) rubbing up against the link limitations of our
current democratic systems, or maybe republic systems.

Our current democracies generally meet the 19th century definitions of
liberalism, in that the people select the government. But I think that in the
modern mind, democratic systems (eg the elected people) are supposed to
conduct the pure will of the people. We don't really like the idea of
representative democracy, where representatives have minds (and interests) of
their own. It doesn't help that democratic political systems are very mature,
with well established and understood political dynamics (parties, etc.)
driving most things.

Imo, what people have in mind as a genuinely democratic system is more like
direct democracy. Frighteningly, we still have strong modernist mentalities
when it comes to politics. Most people argue from abstract justice, and assume
efficacy (if they consider it at all) to be a byproduct of justice. IE if the
system directly conducted the will of the people, stuff would also work
better.

Realistically, we have the technology now for direct democracy but almost no
experience with it. I suspect we'll see attempts made in the next couple of
decades.

Anyway... I wonder if the Economist is influenced by the same sentiments, and
have altered their view of what democracy is (or should be, idealistically).

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mamon
TL;DR: democracy is „full” when elections are won by politicians The Economist
supports, and „flawed” otherwise.

~~~
loorinm
Prove it

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jstewartmobile
Gotta love that polite British understatement of things...

[http://digg.com/2018/west-virginia-woman-ejected-
donors](http://digg.com/2018/west-virginia-woman-ejected-donors)

~~~
refurb
Jesus, that woman is one of the reasons why I've become so cynical about
politics. It's just about scoring points now.

What that article should say is"woman chooses to be disruptive at public
hearing, gets kicked out."

If I decide to a public hearing and play rap music really loud as a protest
and I get kicked out, it doesn't mean the system is broken. It actually means
it works.

~~~
jstewartmobile
So publicly enumerating all of the little venalities surrounding a bill is the
same as playing "rap music really loud as a protest"?

edit: original post title was _The US has been downgraded from a “full
democracy” to a “flawed democracy”_

~~~
refurb
Going into a meeting to be disruptive is not "participating in democracy". She
went there to get arrested. She succeeded.

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hrasyid
If you don't like "Register or log in to download this free report", it's
available in Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_Inde...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_Index_by_country_\(2016\))

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leroy_masochist
I'm not especially looking forward to sitting through recaps of this article
with the Economist readers I know.

Random observation, one nice thing about the Economist is that its readers are
super handy about identifying themselves.

~~~
narrator
I used to read every issue of the economist. I stopped when I realized I
already knew what they were going to say for the rest of the article after
reading the first paragraph.

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profalseidol
Ain't "full democracy" means "direct democracy"? No 4 year group dictatorship.

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sevenfive
Typical Economist analysis. Quite accurate and perceptive -- at predicting and
evaluating things which have already happened.

Also, seems to be paywalled.

~~~
fnordsensei
Why does this list have to be predictive to be useful?

Isn't it quite reasonable that it's based on past performance rather than
being a guess at what might happen in the future?

~~~
sevenfive
It's like Moody's. More political than educational. Downgrading the US may be
fair, but the main purpose it serves is driving clicks. More to the point, the
fact they downgraded the US shouldn't tell the average HN reader anything they
don't already know. Contrast to say, S&P.

Edit: By the way, look at the way the top of the "Flawed Democracies" cluster
under 8.00! I can totally believe some tweaking went on here.

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mjfl
this is almost as bad as a strongly worded letter from the UN.

~~~
lasc4r
this is almost as bad as a strongly worded internet comment.

