Talk:The Economist Democracy Index

Vandalism

The UK position on the list is incorrect. It should be 8.08. There are probably more errors in the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.47.135.117 (talk) 12:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• Claim of errors seconded: http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf <get the real list. South Korea and Taiwan are wrong on this one.

You know what, this entire article is a vandalism if you ask me, The Economist is perhaps worst publication to publish any research or data. They are totally unreliable, totally out of sink with the reality and totally flawed and full of inaccuracies.

sigh — ok look, the article is here because the index serves as one of the major indices and fills a unique role as a well conceived index that separates out economic concerns (so for example countries with large indigenous populations are not unfairly down-rated). The article goes out of its way to point out it is in no way a peer-reviewed, unbiased work. If your political slant is gives you a point of contention with the Economist in general that's just great ... but please keep it to yourself or find a useful way to participate: object on substance. Robbiemuffin (talk) 11:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

because the inflamatory nature just keeps getting better and better, I've gone ahead and deleted unsigned and malsigned comments after this. Robbiemuffin (talk)

Iran is a democracy?

Iran has elections, under the watch of U.N. and is probably more democratic than many of the countries currently on the list. Unfortunately, most of the western media have a pro-Israel policy and often misrepresent Iran when it comes to the democracy in Iran today, to name a few, Iran started the first womens games in Mid-Asia/Mid-East, had the first women taxi driver in Mid Asia and also allows biologically homosexuals to have sex change treatments. Iran's constitution is extremely similar to that of Italy including the pope. As far as democracy goes, it concerns nations providing free and fair elections where majority rules, regardless of whether it is secular or not. I will add Iran in couple of days unless someone has a valid and constructive criticism to this.--78.86.159.199 (talk) 00:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

In Iran you are only allowed to run for office if you are first accepted by the council of elders. A person opposed to sharia law would not be allowed to run for president. This makes Iran no more democratic than China. Also, this is a list published by the Economist and is not to be edited.

Please sign your comments. Iran may be a democracy. That isn't what this index shows. I do wish they showed the constituent parts for each country, it would make questions of this form less common. Robbiemuffin (talk) 12:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Unclear map

The map needs to be fixed, it is too unclear as to what country is rated what. QZXA2 21:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Scale

When the scale is mentioned in the wikipedia article it says "scale of ten" and then links to another wikipedia article named "scale of one to ten". The scale in the economist article is said to be "of 0 to 10", i.e. the equivalence of a scale from 1 to 11. I don't usually edit articles, should I just go ahead and change the link?

 * http://www.economist.com/images/rankings/Democracy.jpg  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.16.82.28 (talk) 14:46, 4 September 2007 (UTC) 

just do it mate, thats obviously a type-o which someone as observant as yourself should correct :)

obviously though, some people lose control and change things which arent even wrong, or just alter things to their opinion/political persuasion! but its fairly obvous that isnt your intention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.48.119 (talk) 04:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Vatican

Where is the Vatican?? Helpsloose (talk) 10:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ask The Economist. Micronations aren't listed in general. Cleduc (talk) 15:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Probably below North Korea... --78.54.179.197 (talk) 12:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Vatican doesn't consider itself a Democracy plus it's a tiny state - so why bother trying to measure democracy there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.246.121.113 (talk) 16:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Possibly an article name move?

I read the pdf version of the article, in order to describe the methology. I noted en passant, that the authors themselves relate their index to a number of other indices, by somewhat different criteria, and resulting in different rankings. With this as a background, I think the title Democracy Index is inadequate, and more pretentious than the report itself. An alternative article name would be Democracy index (The Economist), opening up for articles on other democracy indicies.-JoergenB (talk) 01:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I just came to this page to suggest the exact same thing. I agree it does need a name change, as the economist is not an authority in its views regarding democracy, as the article name suggests. Sbw01f (talk)

There's no reason to disambiguate the title until such time as someone creates an article about a different "Democracy Index". The lead of the article should make clear the subject and its context. Mindmatrix 03:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see that the naming of this article is consistent with the other names in the Category:Lists of countries by international rankings. (There is also a navigation box, probably with further articles; however, searching each item of the box in order to get an overview is much to cumbersome.) Thus, I just modify the introduction slightly.

However, I still think that we should consider namings showing whose index or rating we report on, in the title, for all these articles. As for now, the article names give the impression that (in objective reality or in the firm opinion of Wikipedia) these articles truly list countries by their "Corruption Perceptions", "Democracy", "E-readiness", "Ease of Doing Business", et cetera, to e.g. Corruption Perceptions (Transparency International) or The Economist's and IBM's index of E-readiness, to mention two possible models.

I actually also feel a bit worried over copyright issues. Is it clear that publishing the entire lists are not copyvios? Was this discussed before, somewhere?-JoergenB (talk) 01:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as replicating the list, there was discussion about this (but not about this list in particular) in 2005 and 2006, though I can't seem to find it now. There's also a policy about copying primary sources. Mindmatrix 19:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! The wikisource probably is no alternative. In a sense, providing a summary and linking to http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf the original report] is what this article does; the full text is definitely longer than our quotations, and even the list itself is more detailed in the original. However, the list as quoted (including the ranking) still is an achievement by the "Economist Intelligence Unit", as it stands; and perhaps it's a bit long to quote under "fair usage".

As far as I see, there is no copyright notice whatsoever in the pdf report. On the other hand, the report does be found under the page www.economist.com; and under the same page, after a little search you may find a general terms of usage text, which is very very far from GFDL-compatible. It would be rather nice to know whether someone with a little more understanding of copyright laws checked this in the prior discussion. Else, perhaps we should put a question to our experts.-JoergenB (talk) 21:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I found a discussion from late 2003 (see Are lists copyright?). There's also this, this, and this. There were some discussions on the Village Pump as well, but I'm not going through that archive. Asking about this at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights is probably the best bet. Mindmatrix 23:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I let the question go on to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights (since I was not sure whether the discussions you quoted are applicable in this case). Probably, the people watching that page know.-JoergenB (talk) 04:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

There is stalinist-like totalitarian regime in North Korea, not authoritarian regime! --86.100.66.70 (talk) 20:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Please, 86.100.66.70, understand why changes from "authoritarian" to "totalitarian" in the document are reverted and will continue to be reverted! This article reports on the democracy index of The Economist. The Economist calls North Korea authoritarian. We report what The Economist writes. It would be a lie to list North Korea as totalitarian in this list, because this is not a list of what countries truly are in reality, but a list of what The Economist says that they are (and of the index they had calculated). The Economist classifies North Korea as "authoritarian", and if we should write that The Economist classifies North Korea as "totalitarian", then we would be lying. The "Democracy index" of The Economist doesn't use the term "totalitarian"; the "worst thing" they call a country is "authoritarian". If you think this is bad, 86.100.66.70, then write to The Economist and ask them to change their classification system!

Actually, I think this kind of opinion is an argument for modifying the name of the article. Obviously, at least one reader/editor thought that the article is about the democracy status of countries in some kind of absolute sense, instead of a listing referring to a specific report commissioned by a specific journal.-JoergenB (talk) 14:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Sweden at the top!!??

In Sweden we have to wait for four years to be allowed to vote once and then again wait for four years to be allowed to vote once again and so on. Add to that, the referendums in Sweden are not for real only "advisory" to the Swedish political class. In other words you have missed the most important criteria of all: how often can a citizen vote in a correct election or referendum in a democracy! 17:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Heja Sverige —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.249.248.215 (talk) 06:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

There is much fail in Sweden nowdays, see the FRA-law --81.172.223.220 (talk) 07:34, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this a joke ?

I agree with our friend that mentionned that a title such as democracy index is very misleading. It should be clearly mentionned that this index (i feel pain calling it that) belongs to the Economist.

The arab world is not the region most reknown for its belief in western democracy. But come to this part of the world and tell them Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan etc.. are more democratic then Kuwait and you will be laughed at. Might as well include include England in the dictatorships, they don't have a bill of rights or civil codes.

I really find it odd that the United States is at the very bottom of free press countries, just above Togo and mauritania, barely making it into the free speech countries MAKING IT NONETHELESS. I also find it odd how american occuppied Iraq is at the bottom of the democratic countries, just above Pakistan the first in the list of authoritarian regime. Let me guess... america, Iraq or Afghanistan rank at the very bottom, yet just inside countries that respect human rights.

Is this a joke ? So is america and american standards, with all due respect to america, the quantitative criteria used by the economist and reporeters without borders and other "expert" sources.

I'm Kuwaiti and we here in great part consider it a democracy. Given "western democracy" as a criteria (although i don't believe that to be necessary) we would classify ourselves as hybrid regime, for the simple fact that the prime minister is appointed by the emir and not elected. On the other hand, the crown prince (2nd in line) can be prevented from being emir, and its up to parliament to then chose the monarch who has very little practical powers other then appointing the prime minister. England (and the "colonies") are not dictatorship because people realise that common laws and precedents govern england's basic functioning. If that is not taken into consideration England would be a dictatorship and the queen a dictator. Other countries reputations should not be tarnished on the account of the economist's incompetence and its incapability to know other countries common law and precedents. A country like singapore ranked 140 something in the freedom of press cannot possibly be democratic whilst countries ranked 60 are considered authoritarian regime.

This is a very complex and debatable issue, and methodology plays an important role i realise that. I'm simplifying my point of view and that is not enough, especially that this index belongs to the economist and not wikipedia.

PLEASE MAKE IT LESS MISLEADING HIGHLIGHT THE ECONOMIST AS THE SOURCE OF THIS INDEX The average joe might think these rankings are universally agreed upon.

What a joke, please upload other sources —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonassra (talk • contribs) 07:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous Index

As a Greek, the people who invented democracy, this index is ridiculous. Athenian Democracy had negative voting and osctracism so in that sense not a single country is democratic. However when you break down the word it means the rule of the people. Now tell me please if the heads of the first five most democratic states belong to a heridetary line of Kings and Queens never elected by the people how are these countries democratic really? That's simply absurd and ridiculous. In a democracy the head of state is directly elected by the majority of people. The Kings and Queens of these countries are not. Therefore the should be as undemocratic as other dictatorships with the difference that people are happy in monarchies but unhappy in most dictatorships. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WhiteMagick (talk • contribs) 23:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary Score

It's quite obvious that the scoring is rather arbitrary as they are all subjective scores. I have citizenship in two listed countries both with fairly high scores but one is more than a full point higher than the other; however the scores should be reversed as the one listed as "more democratic" is vastly less so. And this score doesn't take into account checks and balances, a country with complete mob (as in mob of people not organized crime) rule should have a pretty high score....