Most of the democratic countries are in Europe. Name the countries outside of Europe that score the highest in terms of democracy by the magazine "The Economist".
According to the Wikipedia page, "In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been declining for some years, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016. The report states that this was caused by a myriad of factors dating back to at least the late 1960s which have eroded Americans' trust in governmental institutions." So, according to the Economist, the U.S. had a higher ranking during the era of Jim Crow than it does now based on "eroded trust in governmental institutions." Curious, especially given that I think a lack of trust in government is the wisest of stance to take. "Every decent man," quipped Mencken, "is ashamed of the government he lives under."
I think the "lack of trust" isn't simply questioning in the case of the US, it's a negative stance. Rather than say "I don't know" the general stance is that Americans consider that their politicians are always telling half or non-truths. Or a very common viewpoint that voting doesn't really matter and that the government will never accomplish anything other than what is already in place.
Sad to see how low the US government has gotten on this ranking. I'm guessing the "decline" that started in the 1970s was exacerbated by Watergate, but a lot of it also depends on the events of the past 3 years. This administration has certainly moved us farther down the list.
Well, his relentless attacks on the free press aren't a great start. His insistence that anyone who disagrees with him is an "enemy of the people" doesn't help either. His exploitation of loopholes to grant him power that he is not intended to have (abuse of the emergency powers privilege for his wall, for example) is undemocratic. Last week, he promised to pardon anyone who breaks the law on his behalf in pursuit of the wall. What else? Ah, yes. He threatened retaliation against the Ninth Circuit court for ruling against him (which recalls that before the election, he also threatened a specific judge for not taking his side in one the many lawsuits against him). The guy basically throws a tantrum any time he is reminded that this is a democracy and there are checks on his power. Couple with that with his devotion to building a cult of personality, which in turns means that his followers embrace all of his anti-democratic impulses, and yeah, I'd say the US has hit a threshold.
Add that on top of the Transgender ban on the military, and the fact the he has been downplaying Covid basically the entire time. I can understand withholding the truth to prevent panic for a different kind of crisis, but in this case doing so would make the crisis even worse because people aren't aware of it. And guess what happened next: The U.S.'s cases skyrocketed. Trump still hasn't said if he will accept the results of the next election. On top of that there is still the involvement in Ukraine... like seriously man what the hell.
Add to that the US has a system has allows someone who lost the popular vote by 3 million to become President and then that party to dominate both houses. It does not remotely reflect the makeup of how its citizens voted and shows the electoral college system badly needs reform before America can feature in lists about being the most democratic..
Though 2016 was obviously a banner year for the decline of American democracy... the downward trend since the 60s can be explained away by the EIU's flawed and subjective methodology which relies almost entirely upon perception, as measured by polling both "experts" and the general public in each country. So if a Klan member in Jim Crow-era Alabama *feels* like the democracy of the country is strong, moreso than the absurdly privileged Yale student of 2016 who feels oppressed by offensive Halloween costumes and differently colored Band-Aids, and each are part of the polls conducted that year, then you might end up with some screwy results.
I think the biggest thing about America is its kinda hard for laws to be passed because a lot of emphasis is placed on not completely counting out the minority.
Also the electoral college is somewhat obsolete.
But I believe I how they grade it, and I don't fully agree with some of what they consider democracy. Like healthcare, standards or living has nothing to do with democracy.
"a lot of emphasis is placed on not completely counting out the minority."
"Also the electoral college is somewhat obsolete."
These are completely conflicting statements. Laws aren't passed here for a few reasons, but one that I have seen recently is that the legislative branch has willingly given their power to the executive branch. Ruling by executive fiat has become far too commonplace and the legislature exists to merely pass huge spending bills and to just maintain its own existence. If I were president I would issue 3 executive orders on day 1. The first would be to set term limits for congress, the second would be to set term limits for the judiciary, and the third would be to ban executive orders. I would use the stones to destroy the stones.
There are for sure some issues with American democracy. Gerrymandering is an obvious example, as is a President who repeatedly questioned the official election results. Still, I'd say that the USA is undeniably among the most democratic countries worldwide - even sheriffs and judges are subject to elections, and a lot of other officials are elected as well. You could argue whether it's wise to make people vote on judges, but it *is* democratic.
While what Trump did was an EXTREME version, the opposition party has questioned the election results in every presidential election that I have voted in.
Lots of Americans don't vote. Not every vote is counted. You have to register with a political party, not an independent arbitrator. Politicians can choose the electoral boundaries. Voting is on one day only and there are limited places where you can vote. The US could do a lot more to appear democratic.
Also the filibuster disables most laws from getting passed, even if they have the majority of votes in the senate...I would call that apart from extremely stupid also pretty undemocratic.
Okay I probably should have gotten Israel, but there was no way I was coming up with that specific collection of African countries without guessing them all.
My brain refuses to accept that Cyprus is a part of Asia. As far as I'm concerned, people who support its inclusion in Asia are no better than Flat Earthers or those who try to justify the name "eSports".
Your brain refuses to admit that the majority of the population of Turkey isn't in Europe?
Cyprus lies south and east of most of Turkey's people.
Cyprus lies about 50 or 60 miles off the coast of Syria, which is absolutely not Europe in any way, shape or form. How many 100s and 100s of miles off the coast of Europe is Cyprus? Nevermind, the continent of Asia is in the way.
Europe and Asia aren't different continents anyway geographically speaking. It's a cultural differenciation. In that way, Cyprus is more European than Asian and Turkey is more Asian than European.
@Kalbahamut, It doesn't mean Greece is Asian, it means that the border between Europe and Asia is approximately there, in that archapeligo, it can be harder to define ocean borders but it probably would include a few Greek islands as Asian or a few Turkish islands as European, or both.
I do agree that Cyprus is very culturally European and so it would makes sense to group it with Europe, but for the sake of this quiz it should belong in Asia where it geographically is located.
The point is that the argument that Cyprus is in Asia because it's so many miles away from the coastline is nonsense. There are other European islands that are closer. Continental borders are arbitrary and artificial. I don't have a problem with placing Cyprus in Asia. I have a problem with stupid arguments. Or acting condescending toward those who don't hold your position on an issue that is clearly up for debate, based on poor reasoning.
(If using solid reasoning and good arguments, or taking a position on something that is not so moot, then by all means be condescending)
I know a woman from Texas, who would just say this was fake. But she also believes that Europe is one country and that we teach sex ed in Kindergarten, where we show the kids porn!!?! And she has compared Denmark to Iran, because she didn't understand the GDPR law. She also believed that crime was very high her in Denmark, as in much higher than in the US.. Needless to say, she doesn't really care for facts. She would probably still be on level 1 here after taking a thousands quizzes..
Usually, when a country calls itself "democratic", it is actually a dictatorship with no respect for human rights. Truly democratic countries don't feel the need to do that. For example, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was in fact far less democratic than the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) is far less democratic than the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The People's Republic of China (China) is far less democratic than the Republic of China (Taiwan).
However, the most ridiculous official name for a country is probably the full name of Brunei, in my opinion. It is "Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace". Quite ironic when you know that Brunei is an absolute monarchy that persecutes homosexuals and political opponents.
This really needs to say what the criteria is to be on this list? Seems pretty subjective. If its no more than personal opinion, then India should be on the list - its the largest democracy in the world with a billion people! Yes, it has flaws and some politicians are shamefully corrupt. However with all its challenges, it returns an election result where the popular vote has always won (unlike the US).
fyi: it doesn't measure countries just on how credible the elections are. It also measures functioning of government, political culture, civil liberties, and participation, which the US has it beat.
"The Democracy Index has been criticised for lacking transparency and accountability beyond the numbers. To generate the index, the Economist Intelligence Unit has a scoring system in which various experts are asked to answer 60 questions and assign each reply a number, with the weighted average deciding the ranking. However, the final report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts."
I would imagine it takes some subjective adjusting to make sure the US is labeled a "flawed democracy".
Give me a break. We have elections for positions from school board members up to President and our democratic participation is at an all time high. Out of literally thousands of elections every year, basically zero are in dispute. If they are, it gets resolved within days.
Btw, confidence in the result of elections is used for the functionning of the government, which is the lowest score of the US (since 2016) and made the country loosing the full democracy labbel it had before.
Could some notes on the fact that some countries aren't included in the ranking be added? I was guessing all the countries in the Lesser Antilles for ages.
I'm sure some of them would make this list. Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica both missed out by only 0.04 points or so. South Africa missed out by about 0.15.
Given the current climate, I'm really afraid that Taiwan won't be on this list much longer. Or at a minimum have a nice red arrow next to it. Makes me sad.
Well, I may not be in the 1%, but I am in the 2% - that is, those who missed the US. I think it fell through the cracks of me switching methodologies halfway through. I initially started out trying to guess them in order, and after I'd done NZ, Canada, Australia, Taiwan and Uruguay, I instead switched to pretty much just randomly guessing them. In my head I think this meant I'd done the super obvious ones, so was instead trying to think of more obscure answers.
So neither the Democratic People's Republic of Korea nor the Democratic Republic of the Congo are among the most democratic nations? I've been lied to my entire life :D
Also the electoral college is somewhat obsolete.
But I believe I how they grade it, and I don't fully agree with some of what they consider democracy. Like healthcare, standards or living has nothing to do with democracy.
"Also the electoral college is somewhat obsolete."
These are completely conflicting statements. Laws aren't passed here for a few reasons, but one that I have seen recently is that the legislative branch has willingly given their power to the executive branch. Ruling by executive fiat has become far too commonplace and the legislature exists to merely pass huge spending bills and to just maintain its own existence. If I were president I would issue 3 executive orders on day 1. The first would be to set term limits for congress, the second would be to set term limits for the judiciary, and the third would be to ban executive orders. I would use the stones to destroy the stones.
What is slightly worrying is that South Africa is on this list at all! Just goes to show how far the world still has to go.
Cyprus lies south and east of most of Turkey's people.
Cyprus lies about 50 or 60 miles off the coast of Syria, which is absolutely not Europe in any way, shape or form. How many 100s and 100s of miles off the coast of Europe is Cyprus? Nevermind, the continent of Asia is in the way.
I do agree that Cyprus is very culturally European and so it would makes sense to group it with Europe, but for the sake of this quiz it should belong in Asia where it geographically is located.
(If using solid reasoning and good arguments, or taking a position on something that is not so moot, then by all means be condescending)
However, the most ridiculous official name for a country is probably the full name of Brunei, in my opinion. It is "Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace". Quite ironic when you know that Brunei is an absolute monarchy that persecutes homosexuals and political opponents.
Watch your country on the Israeli version of "The Amazing Race", it looks lovely!
Give me a break. We have elections for positions from school board members up to President and our democratic participation is at an all time high. Out of literally thousands of elections every year, basically zero are in dispute. If they are, it gets resolved within days.