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According to the Democracy Index (article about it here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/democracy-index-data-economist-governments-b2705687.html https
by diggan 2y ago
According to the Democracy Index (article about it here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/democracy-index-data-economist-governments-b2705687.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/democracy-index-dat...) there are about 25 "Full Democracies", 107 Non-authoritarian regimes, and 60 authoritarian regimes.
Fun fact: The US isn't counted as a "Full Democracy" by that index, so seems it's not as a great of an achievement as you seem to think. I'm looking forward to see how the ranking of the US changes in 2025, seems to be slipping downwards rather than upwards sadly.
- rayiner 2y agoWhat’s the basis of that index. Are they alleging US elections are rigged?
- machomaster 2y agoWhy are you asking questions instead of easily reading about the index criteria?
- mindslight 2y agoPlaying six degrees of buttery emails.
- throw16180339 2y agoHe's just sealioning again.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoOr maybe these democracy index things are entirely arbitrary
- AlexeyBelov 2y agoI used to like reading his comments years ago. Now it's like an enlightened reddit user, in the worst way.
- rayiner 2y agoIt’s just a way to say: why do you think this index is meaningful based on what it measures.
- machomaster 2y agoIn that case you should have actually made your case, voice what in the index you disagree with and why.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- diggan 2y agoThere are a lot of indicators they look at, give it a read if you're curious: https://image.b.economist.com/lib/fe8d13727c61047f7c/m/1/609fbc8d-4724-440d-b827-2c7b7300353d.pdf https://image.b.economist.com/lib/fe8d13727c61047f7c/m/1/609... (North America starts at page 44). One snippet: > However, the political and structural problems that caused the US to be downgraded to a “flawed democracy” in 2016 (a downgrade that pre-dated the inauguration of Donald Trump as president in January 2017) persist. These include low levels of trust in political institutions and the media; institutional gridlock; excessive influence of lobbyists, interest groups and the mega-rich; sharp economic and social inequalities; and an absence of social consensus on core national values.
- xyzzyz 2y agoSorry, but why exactly should we care about what some random score that some people invented and named Democracy Index says? It’s not like there is some universal agreement that maximizing the score in these people’s quiz is good or proper.
- diggan 2y agoAt least they provide justification and reasoning behind the numbers they assign, they're not throwing darts to see what to score things. Read through the report yourself, then come back if there are specific things you disagree with. Or maybe even better, find some better research and link it here. Just saying "USA is the most democratic country in the world" feels like worse than at least trying to look at things objectively.
- rayiner 2y agoI didn’t say the U.S. was the most democratic country in the world—I wasn’t comparing the U.S. to Norway or Denmark. But the U.S. achieved in the 18th century something that Germany, France, Spain, etc., didn’t achieve until the mid-20th century. That’s an achievement. And the lack of universal suffrage back in the day doesn’t diminish America’s achievement. India and Bangladesh and Iraq and many places have universal suffrage but they’re not as democratic as the U.S. was in 1789. Getting to that point is the 0 to 1 of democracy. Expanding the franchise from there is incremental development.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoThis index unironically puts countries that practice government censorship in the category of full democracies. Sorry but this isn't a democracy index - it's just a progressive index.