Talk:The Economist Democracy Index

Why can't this Talk page be edited?

Ninety percent of this talk page is junk from people who just want to discuss their political views. How is this considered useful for a Wikipedia editor? I tried deleting all the trash, but got warned from a Wikipedia guardian and my changes undone. It's a shame that guidelines are applied blindly like that, it makes Wikipedia more of a pain to deal with. I think this Talk page should be cleaned up in addition to any changes made to the article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.17.245.4 (talk) 20:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Just summing up this talk page so people don't have to read it: This page should be deleted because I don't agree with quite a few of the rankings made by the economist and as a result they don't exist, Obama is the antichrist. I'm basing this upon just one select criterion which, if taken by itself, is very different from the overall ranking of the country, and the USA is evil. The USA blah blah blah Obama Cannabis. I also disagree with their definition of the terms "Full" or "Partial" Democracy based upon my need to boil everything down to overstating one single issue, such as Sweden has to be last because it has a monarch, regardless of everything else, everybody has clearly been brainwashed by the liberal media who are trying to kill God (who is a Republican white male.) The fact that this is an article about the economist's index is irrelevant as I'm so commited to freedom and open press that anything I disagree with must not only be slated, but an encyclopedia should not even acnowledge that it exists, and the corporate USA who controls all governments everywhere by CIA mind-control is clearly responsible for anyone who might disagree with me. Blah Blah Blah Republic Blah.

That's essentially it.87.242.146.18 (talk) 21:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• This was AN ULTIMATE COMMENT. Hats off. Slamazzar (talk) 22:23, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Full Democracy is Flawed also

One person, 1 Vote is equality but is also mob rule, how can this be fair? Some people can give a large amount to their society while others give nothing, and take a lot, and yet they both have 1 vote ? How can this be just ? Where a multiple votes per person system based on what a person gives to society would be far fairer. The more one gives - tax amount, volunteer work, charity work, national sporting commitments etc, the more votes one gets while the more one takes, the few votes they receive. This system would force citizens to be more productive and not just live off welfare (other people’s money) like in many western nations ATM. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.59.150 (talk) 10:45, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

That's great, but this is a discussion page, not a forum. --LJ Holden 23:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Article needs to be completely reworked

This article handles one democracy index as if it were the only one and a generic democracy index. Therefore this article should be moved to a separate article with the name "The Economist Intelligence Unit´s index of democracy".

A Google search will reveal that there are now several different democracy indices, and this article - with this title - should be a general article about all different democracy indices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.10.249.136 (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. The title is deeply dishonnest. It has to be changed into "The Economist Intelligence Unit´s index of democracy". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.151.177.192 (talk) 12:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Strongly agree : "The Economist Intelligence Unit´s index of democracy" --Azukimame (talk) 01:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The UK democracy

Being from the UK, I found it interesting to note that Gordon Brown served as our PM whilst we were (are) at war with Iraq and Afghanistan, and helped implement or control numerous excursions of the law regarding treatment of 'terrorists' and other emergency acts. Yet he himself was never elected to that position by the public and no poll was taken of the public regarding any of the decisions that he put in place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnheritage (talk • contribs) 14:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

South Africa's status?

Countries above 7.9 are meant to be classified as full democracies but South Africa is 7.91 so surely it is (just) a full democracy rather than a hybrid regime as it is listed as at the moment? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.232.196 (talk) 21:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

How come Iran is more democratic than Syria?

• 1. Syrian women do not have to wear veil, they can freely choose how to dress
• 2. Syrian citizens can choose any religion they wish with backup from the government
• 3. Syrian law provides mosques and churches to all citizens
• 4. First lady of Syria has an important symbolic prominent role, while First Lady of Iran is hardly seen
• 5. Syrian women are allowed to work and leave the house
• 6. Sharia laws are forbidden in Syria
• 7. Death penalty in Syria is only used for terrorism, rape and murder, while more often used in Iran for even more crimes
• 8. Syrian women have a prominent role in music and cinema
• 9. Syrian women have seats in the parliament
• 10. Syrian women can choose to divorce...

...while Iran is the opposite.

Shall I give more examples? I really don't get how Iran is more democratic. The idea that Iranian citizens can choose President is really not true. They can choose a number of candidates that are allowed to reign, but in reality they must share the ideas of the governmet - not the people. The Syrian authority have a bigger heart for the human soul than the Iranian.

Under Bashar al- Assads time as President hundreds of political prisoners were released and a steps were taken towards easing media restrictions. Did this ever happen in Iran after the revolution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.77.162.196 (talk) 00:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

You'd need to address that question to "The Economist", the magazine which published the Democracy Index. This article is just about the magazine's index, and this talk page is just about improving the article. Cheers, TFOWR^{This flag once was red} 17:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

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.

That link is the 2007 report - this article is about the 2010 report - so there will be loads of differences —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.242.146.18 (talk) 21:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

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)

No, most European medias are NOT pro-Israel. The most of them are against the Israeli terror. And Iran can't be called a democracy. Since 1979, they've executed or killed over 1 000 000 of it's 70 000 000 people - many of them were innocent. They kill people that are gay, non-islamists and more. That gives it away. 62.16.168.251 (talk) 16:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Homosexuals do not want sex change operations (you are confusing them with transexuals). Homosexuals do, however, want to live - which under the Iranian regime is not an option. Vauxhall1964 (talk) 19:54, 5 March 2012 (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)

We have initiated a critical review of the rating for Sweden. Google sweden democracy index review and look for wordpress grundlag. Note, this is serious, not some spurious ranting! We provide links to Swedish sources and experts.[[[Special:Contributions/79.136.76.102|79.136.76.102]] (talk) 12:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)]

As a swede I take great offence at being listed first. It puts our government, who has a penchant for pushing through invasive legislations no matter if it's the left or right block in control of the government, in a far far too positive light. Just google FRA, and all the issues regarding pirate bay. Talk about foreign intererests dictating political policy for Sweden. No offence but things like this puts the credability of the entire thing in serious jeopardy.

You did surely not understand the system of the democracy index. Sure, there is FRA in Sweden and other things, but the Swedes are allowed to CRITICISE it and DEMONSTRATE, show their anger toward the POLITICIANS that came up with that idea.

You think that is allowed in some other countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.77.162.196 (talk) 11:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I'm not an "expert" of any of theese issues, so I realize my critique is just personal opinion. However, I do feel I'm allowed to question the respresentation of the thing. I got the impression that this was sort sort of peer reviewed study from looking at the name alone.

Please make it ABSOLUTELY clear that this is a democracy index by a specific group. I'd go as far as to rename the entire thing "Democracy index FROM/BY xxx" or similiar. Caps for my emphasis & xxx is for the name of the organisation in question.

Annoying username (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not an expert either, but I am from Sweden and I have been living many years in 3 other corners of Europe and I can tell there is a big difference. The FRA-law was just putting a law to a practise used for a few decades, and American interests with a lot of money can of course dictate that PirateBay is a bad thing, but other than this the democracy has very few flaws. The people can vote and start political parties freely, everything is more transparent and visible. That the people were idiots and voted for the wrong party does not mean the democracy is flawed.92.80.100.109 (talk) 04:02, 30 March 2009 (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)

I am most baffled that Pakistan has not been classified as a defacto monarchy, because the Bhutto family always rules. Benazir Bhutto made her son the heir/ruler and her widower is only ruling as regent. The Bhuttos are a maharadja family, their rule is simply tradition and should be called a monarchy (with a parliamentary smokescreen). I disagree with other places, too, but that's not as misleading as the Pakistan one. 144.136.177.146 (talk) 03:58, 17 December 2010 (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)

I don't know about the other most democratic countries but if there is a majority in Sweden that do not want the monarch, he will be removed. That is democratic, right? Additionally, he has no political power and is not allowed to make any political comments. Therefore, calling the monarch a "dictator" is ignorant. He is a diplomat. 92.80.100.109 (talk) 04:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you... You have to understand that the people responsible for defining democracy and freedom are running out of ideas. They are turning democracy into an adjective devoid of any of its original meaning, and alienating their definition from common sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonassra (talk • contribs) 06:10, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I find it unacceptable that constitutional monarchies are more democratic than actual republics. The rulers have absolute power, appoint governments etc. The monarchist rules through a government so if something goes wrong he will blame the government rather than him while he lives a carefree luxurious environment. I heard claims that the Economist was very biased and unscientific which I usually dismissed. Now I know its true! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.64.194.163 (talk) 22:20, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The index doesn't make sense. In Germany and Austria, for instance, because of their complex recent history, it is forbidden to dispute the number of Holocaust victims: one can be jailed for that. One cannot demonstrate the swastika in public or say certain things. Such bans may be righteous, but they're hardly democratic. --Humanophage (talk) 01:34, 22 March 2009 (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.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.173.229 (talk) 03:44, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Change the title

I commented previously and the purpose of my comment was to highlight how the title is inappropriate. Unless the economist holds a monopoly or a patent on democracy the title shouldn't read democracy index, but the economists democracy index.

the criterias are: "Whether national elections are free and fair"; "The security of voters"; "The influence of foreign powers on government"; "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".

Now the last two are a bit controversial. If a government is pressured into submitting to the wills of foreign power does that make it more of an authoritarian regime and less of a democracy ? It probably makes it less democratic (to no fault of its own), but it certainly does not make it more authoritarian.

The index is rubbish, the title is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonassra (talk • contribs) 06:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Objective criteria and an objective source

I guess this is a rant at the thousands of times I hear the word democracy being thrown around daily, but democratic republicanism (statism) is not as democratic a society can be.

Secondly, The Economist newspaper itself takes a biased viewpoint upon the world from a "pro-free trade" lens. Why is an entire article based upon a single source as if it's absolute writ?--76.205.212.142 (talk) 06:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

France

Where is France on the list? It looks like on the map that it should be somewhere in the same range as the US but its not on the list at all. On Thermonuclear War (talk) 05:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

 Done: France is at no. 24. Portugal was written twice. Typing error. Marsa Lahminal (talk) 07:07, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

What is a hybrid regime? and what Venezuela is on it

I don't have or find a clear definition of a hybrid regime and the word "regime" does not sound very nice. I live in Venezuela and I think this country is a democracy:

• we have an AVERAGE of 3 elections through free, secret vote and universal suffrage PER YEAR.
• All governing officials are elected through popular vote.
• There are over 200 political parties.
• There is a MEDIA WAR where the private media have called the President an "homosexual insane monkey" and channels still remain uncensored.
  • If you talk about the closure of RCTV well it was NOT closed its license was not renewed (because the license belong to the government) and even though is no longer on air it continues to broadcast its subliminal messages through Cable and Satellite television.
• Newspaper are even more critical than Radio stations or Television networks and none of them have stopped circulating.
• Nobody is being sent to jail, persecuted or tortured for his/her political views as it happened before 1993.

I think you should review this. The only reason why we might not be fully democratic is because there is control over how much American dollars we can buy, sell or spend. Thanks.Tony0106 (talk) 06:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Error with Italy and Slovenia

It says Italy and Slovenia are listed as full democracies. However, the guidelines explain that:

Full democracies—scores of 8-10.

That means Italy and Slovenia should be flawed democracies as their scores are 7.98 and 7.96. Does this need to be changed? Globe-trotter (talk) 13:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

i agree with u... they ar below 8.00 so shouldn't be full democracy. change is needed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.39.246.178 (talk) 08:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Which is incorrect, the number or the label? --TeaDrinker (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

isn't the label wrong??? actually i don't really know... which is incorrect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.216.124.133 (talk) 13:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You're wrong, there was a recent dispute over this (no one violated 3rr), but the result is that they are full democracies. Let me explain, you rightly state that full democracies have scores of 8-10. How ever, flawed democracies have scores of 6 to 7.9. So in the case of Italy and Slovenia their scores are 7.98 and 7.96, if you round that to one decimal place, the result is: 8.0 and 8.0, as 6 and 8 both round up to the nearest ten. Thank you Spitfire^Tally-ho! 05:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I changed Slovenia and Italy back to full democracy. this is clear from table (30 full democracy). Moreover, source contains the sentence "Italy upgraded from Flawed to Full Democracy".

USA is not a democracy

The constitution of USA article 4 section 4 clause 1 states that USA is a republic.USA should not be added as it is not a democracy but a republic.Atleast add a note —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.162.104.235 (talk) 15:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Sigh... the same old song, presumably submitted by a Republican who opposes the Democratic party in the USA. The USA is a republic whose representatives are chosen by the vote of the people, so it is a democracy. It's true that the Constitution does not specify exactly how the states are supposed to choose their Senators, Representatives, and electors to the Electoral College, but a very large amount of legislation and case law does. Perhaps you've heard of the Voting Rights Act? —EWAdams (talk) 00:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The United States is a Democratic Republic in which The People select most of their representation in government, but not the President or his/her appointees. It should not be stated that the US is a "Full Democracy," because it isn't. It has nothing to do with Democrat/Republican, but with facts vs. fiction. In a full democracy, The People choose ALL of their representation by a simple majority, and that is not the way it is done in the United States. The People do not choose the President, and The People's representation in Congress does not depend directly, but only indirectly, on the population of their State. The USA is pretty far from a full democracy. 198.182.12.150 (talk) 14:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow! This is seriously the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard... --Christian140 (talk) 17:30, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia is the least democratic

This definition is from the Wikipedia: Democracy is a form of government in which power is held indirectly by citizens in a free electoral system.

Based on the above definition, the democracy index of Saudi Arabia should be equal to zero. The government there is totally formed of Al-Saud family members (House of Saud), so the army leaders, minsters, governments official, police leaders are from "House of Saud" and all other forms of authority are ruled by Saud family members...

In North Korea there is a Party ruling the country, not a family, so ministers there when they die they will be replaced (not democratically) by another people in the communist party... but in Saudi Arabia, they will be replaced by their brothers, cousins or sons... so there is no way for any citizen (except Saud family members and their relatives) to be a minster (or even a general) in Saudi Arabia, in North Korea there is a way (by being a communist your entire life, then you may be chosen......... or you may not, but there is a chance).

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which officially forbid democracy, in North Korea there is no democracy, but the government there did not declare that democracy is evil (even that it believe it is) but the Saudi Arabian government officials [like the head of the religious police (Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice)] declares that democracy is evil and forbidden, also in the Saudi interpretation of their constitution democracy is against god's will and it is the devil way to destroy human society (actually Saudi Arabia have no constitution, it is just a 1400 years old holy book named "Quran" which is their constitution).

Saudi Arabian constitution = Quran = God is the ruler >>> King rules in his name >>> his relatives help him >>> people should obey.

The written paragraph above is all about the above democracy definition, if we extend the definition to include other democracy elements (like freedom of speech and thought), Saudi Arabia democracy index will not improve at all, its democracy index would be -2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.42.225.230 (talk) 21:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.21.201 (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

A link to a Swedish blog in english with a critical review of the EIU rating for Sweden

Someone has removed the link to a Swedish blog with a critical review of the EIU rating of Sweden. This was apparently done without arguing why. The link has now been added again. If someone wants to remove it then please present your arguments before doing so. 79.136.76.102 (talk) 15:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:EL and WP:NOT. Wikipedia does not allow links to blogs unless they are authoritative for their subject. Mindmatrix 15:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

And it what way exactly does the blog in question not conform? You claim this but you do not argue it in any detail. In what way is it not "authoritative" for its subject? It is neutral since it does not express a particular point of view. It does not present new research, but contains a number of references to authoritative sources and relevant debate. It is of course also highly relevant to the subject. So, how does it not conform? 79.136.76.102 (talk) 17:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It was me who removed it, sorry it seems i wasn't logged on at the time. The article in the blog is a POV diatribe at best, and verging on liberal propaganda, visible from the multiple references to 'liberal think tanks' and the like. It is also obviously not written by a recognised authority. Wikipedia is not a place to advertise your politico-ideological polemics. I, therefore, don't need to argue on its removal, you should have argued before its introduction. As Mindmatrix suggested you should read WP rules on external links before posting. (KLA (talk) 22:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC))

1. You give only one concrete argument in you reply, and that is the false claim about liberal think tanks. The articles contain a mixture of references, the majority of which are professors at Swedish universties, reports from government inquiries, and the like. Some of their research is also conducted by recognised scholars, and is treated and referenced as such by other scholars. When did recognised Swedish scholarship become propaganda? And when did it become propaganda to include many different points of view in a review?

2. You only mention one article, which suggests you have not read the six articles that comprise the critical review. Maybe reading the review in its entirety may be a good starting point?

I wonder if you perhaps have been contacted by a company that has an interest in that the link disappears? Maybe in exchange for a handfull of cash? Or maybe you are just a run of the mill leftist rabulist, who produces more insults than arguments, and the few arguments you produce are false?

I did check the rules, and I found content criteria. I did not see the term recognised authority, but I probably missed it. Maybe you can show me where it is, and how it is defined by Wikipedia?

79.136.76.102 (talk) 19:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I have now checked the rules again, and I found the term recognised authority, and I also found that there is no reason why the blog should not pass those criteria. What the rules say is that this restriction is very limited, and the only clarifying information given is a reference to notability. And we pass the criteria for notability.

So, what is left of the arguments from Klassikal? Well, nothing, except slurs and lies.

There is also a need to further discuss the issue of possible corruption:

- Why is this article only about The Economist, instead of one generic article about democracy indices, and one specific about the EIU index?

- How is it that detailed results from the EIU index are published by Wikipedia, when we have shown that they are not authoritative?

- Why was our link in place for at least two months, before it suddenly was deleted, just when our blog was starting to grow with more damning evidence against the EIU:s rating of Sweden?

- Why is it that the person who has removed the link resorts to politicised slurs, instead of facts, and seemingly biased interpretations of rules?

83.233.232.115 (talk) 16:52, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Listen, i don't want to start a flame war or anything like that. I just want to play by the rules. You claim you article in not POV, i disagree. But that doesn't matter because linking the article is against other WP rules.

Firstly, you claim that your article "does not present new research, but contains a number of references to authoritative sources and relevant debate." The fact that your article has references does not exclude it from being "original research". Many articles could only be based on secondary sources and still be original research. If you had published your analysis in a journal or newspaper, then it could pass that criteria. Anyone could write an article about anything, it could be the best article in the world, with tons of references, but if its not published in a newspaper or journal or equivalent it would still be against WP rules. It would only be allowed from a blog if it is written by an recognised authority.

The "recognised authority" clause says:

"Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority (this exception is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for biographies)."

Thus, if you feel that you, the writer, is so important that you deserve a Wikipedia page in your name, then sure, your article should be linked. Notice that i not saying that you don't present arguments by recognised authorities; i am rather saying that you are not not a recognised authority. If you can find a personal blog or whatever of a Swedish politician, or an article in a newspaper or any other recognised authority that criticises the Democracy Index you are welcome to link it. I mean no disrespect but you are not even registered in WP. As for the personal attacks i won't even bother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Klassikal (talk • contribs) 07:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is a joke

I concur with those above who have wondered aloud whether or not this index was a joke. I've concluded that it must be. As far as I'm aware, Bolivia is the most democratic state on the planet today: Morales was selected by the common people from among their own ranks -- which has never and will never happen in any corporate state -- and he was affirmed by 45% of the population in 2005 and 57% in 2008, which will likewise never happen in a corporate state. (That's percentage of the population, not just of voters, which is a distinction that the corporate states are loathe to have pointed out, since it would reveal the fact that only a third or less of the populations of those states actually approve of the corporate stooges that are trotted out for their approval every few years in order to maintain the illusion of legitimacy.) Yet, lo and behold, Bolivia is listed in the middle of the pack as a "flawed" democracy. Why? Because Morales is taking no shit from the US -- that's the "flaw." But, it won't be long before the corporate media has finished branding him a dictator so he can be toppled without undo bleating from the sheeple. This article should be deleted, since it is being linked from other articles as a legitimate reference for which states constitute democracies. An illegitimate propaganda index is thereby being legitimized. How is that encyclopedic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.105.246.237 (talk • contribs)

why don't you actually look at the report before commenting on its accuracy. The list does not just measure the right to vote, but also the standard of civil liberties, voter participation, and how the country's political system works. Bolivia was listed as a "hybrid regime" because Morales uses public funds for his political campaigns and the parliament of Bolivia tends to rubber stamp every law he writes. This is all available in the report. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.150.68 (talk) 03:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Lists of countries

Template:Lists of countries has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Cybercobra (talk) 07:15, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Several countries have bicameralism, not shown as such

In the tabel shown, several countries do have bicameralism (at least as far as I can understand the definition). The Netherlands (Nederland) has the "Tweede kamer" (approx. the House of Representatives in the US) and the "Eerste kamer" (approx. the Senate in the US), so IMHO it should rate as bicameralism. Same for the UK (House of Commons, House of Lords). Rgds, Hens Kolff (Nederland). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.95.194.27 (talk) 16:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Several countries have bicameralism, not shown as such

In the tabel shown, several countries do have bicameralism (at least as far as I can understand the definition). The Netherlands (Nederland) has the "Tweede kamer" (approx. the House of Representatives in the US) and the "Eerste kamer" (approx. the Senate in the US), so IMHO it should rate as bicameralism. Same for the UK (House of Commons, House of Lords). 82.95.194.27 (talk) 16:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)Rgds, Hens Kolff (Nederland). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.95.194.27 (talk) 16:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

what is wrong with sweden being first

- i mean come on you find it to be an outrage that sweden is first. I mean i personally think iceland or finland are the most democratic countries but sweden and those other countries I listed are certainly more democratic then the US if you don't think so give me a fucking break you are most certainly not the freest just because your president's say "we are the leaders of the free world" you can cite as many sources as you want but there is nothing that can make me or to be honest a lot of people around this world on the issue of whether the US is the most democratic. My other problems with this list are chad being the second least free bullshit turkmenistan which is number three has a personality cult and the whole nine yards which Chad does not. Having Burkina Faso or the Central African Republic down there are also bull Burkina Faso is definatly not one of the world's least free countries it has a great government which although is not democratic has helped Burkina become a fast growing country. The car is sure not the most perfect democracy but President Francois Bozize overthrew a repressive government in 2003 and later stepped down to run in elections that were considered by every observer there from all over the world to be free and fair. I don't agree Saudi Arabia is less free then the DPRK give me a break. To the kuwait guy totally agree Kuwait is widely considered to be one of the most democratic governments in the Middle East. forgive the rant but to be honest I support the gov'ts of most of the countries low on this list and they state above in how they measure where the countries go they use main statistical evidence

Does this list EVER change

Does the list ever change. Does it update. Many countries change their way of living and/or their government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamid10 (talk • contribs) 13:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Change update

I agree I think someone should find out if another one was made since the above guy is right I don't know but as someone who travels off this list it would be helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.105.67.61 (talk) 17:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Update?

Did the Economist group publish a democracy index for 2009? 2010? Ben Gershon - בן גרשון (Talk) 17:00, 2 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by בן גרשון (talk • contribs)

The 2010 Democracy Index has been published recently and can be downloaded here: http://www.eiu.com/public/democracy_index.aspx . You have to register to download it. I would be happy to update the table, but is it a problem that the only source requires registration? The 2006 and 2008 publications are available without registration, but the latest one is not. --Antti Salonen (talk) 00:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

registation is free.plz update it http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf 122.162.113.180 (talk) 08:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

2010 Update

I updated the tables to be in line with the recently published 2010 report. The map is not updated! I also did not touch the "Type of government" column, which may be out of date in the case of some countries. For example Guinea's overall score improved quite a bit so I wonder if it's still a military junta?

In general the 2010 report showed that most full democracies had their overall scores drop since 2008, for example due to decreased political participation. On the other hand, many flawed democracies had improved overall scores. The countries with most notable increases in overall scores were Ghana (now in the flawed democracy category), Malawi, Kuwait, Togo and Guinea. On the other hand, Madagasgar for example had a huge drop in the overall score as a result of the political unrest. Fiji, Gambia, Egypt, Afghanistan and Iran also went significantly downhill since the 2008 report.

I wonder if the table should be added a column to show change? If so, would it be better to show the change since the first report (2006) or the previous one (2008)? Antti Salonen (talk) 18:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

MAP needs to be updated

Map in this article is misleading cos it showas not accurate data.For example in Europe France, Italy, Greece and few other countries need to be shown on the map as FLAWED DEMOCRACIES.can somebody please change it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.40.48.160 (talk) 12:10, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I created a new version of the map (by just recoloring the old one) and updated the article to use it. It's still using the same key, which I find a bit problematic. For example it's using a different shade of blue for a small number of hybrid regimes with indexes between 4 and 4.5, and that shade is very similar to other hybrid regimes with scores between 4.5 and 6. Compare Iraq (4.00) and Russia (4.26) to Turkey (5.73) for example. Eight shades of blue might be a bit too much, so a different palette (for example green-yellow-red) might be a better choice if we want differences between countries in the same category to be visible.

Also, the map is still raster (PNG) instead vector graphics (SVG). It's very easy to update with any graphics editor with a paint bucket tool, but SVG would obviously be better otherwise. I'm willing to provide one, but I would like to use a different set of colors. Antti Salonen (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's another, and in my opinion a better version of the current map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_Index_2010_green_and_red.png

It's using nine different colors: Four shades of green for full democracies and flawed democracies, yellow and orange for hybrid regimes and three shades of red for authoritarian regimes. Each color covers one point of the scale, except for the darkest shade of red (0 to 1.9) because there are and have not been any countries with scores much below 1. If I don't hear any objections I will replace the currently used version of the 2010 map with this one. --Antti Salonen (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Where are the scores for individual questions?

While obviously this isn't a direct issue for this page, I've looked up at Israel's score for civil liberties and answered the questions for myself as an Israeli. I disagree with the 5.x score the Economist has given under this part.

• it should be notes that some discrepancies exist on the data
• if there is a link to the individual question/answers per county, it should be given —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.180.204.229 (talk) 17:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The UK

It might be a really daft question, but; How can the UK be considered a full democracy when it is a constitutional monarchy and the head-of-state is ultimatley unelected?--Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 12:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Over three months later and nobody offers an answer?--Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 15:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The standards are:

"Whether national elections are free and fair"; "The security of voters"; "The influence of foreign powers on government"; "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".

Whether the head of state is elected has nothing whatsoever to do with any of these, so long as he or she doesn't have any political power--which the Queen does not. TallNapoleon (talk) 19:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, an answer finaly :) lol --Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 19:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly 4 of the top 5 and 7 of the top 10 are constitutional monarchies. Who'd have thought it? Suggests evolution not revolution makes for better democracies? Anyway, his is not the place to have that debate. Epeeist smudge (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Although 3 of them are the same monarchy. I'm still of the opinion that a constitutional monracy is not a full democracy, mainly becase you can't take any high-up political position in the UK (as an example) without swearing an oath to the Queen; which means that anybody who has a problem with the monarchy, including myself, can't really campaign for any of those positions. I'm no political expert but this seems to discount national elections in the UK from being completely "free and fair". --Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 09:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Are these studies neutral?

Hi, i am surprised to see some Latin American countries depicted as flawed democracies. If they were flawed, then there would be much more vote fraud and international watch groups wouldn't be allowed during elections. It seems to me like Latin America, not all, but for the most part has moved from authoritarian regimes to full democracies (with imperfections but that is expected). But the facts show that the people have been able to elect their own governors. In cases such as Venezuela the dictator (that can be discussed) was elected by the Venezuelan people, in Colombia a president wanted to last 3 terms instead of 2 as it is allowed in full democracies, and he was not allowed by the judicial system. In conclusion I have doubts over the neutrality of this kind of index. If the index was fair then it should question the democracy of countries like the United States where two parties have prevailed and are by themselves powerful machinery whose electoral system has failed too (Gore vs Bush for instance). I hope anyone working on this article takes this into consideration as to make the article more neutral. Thanks --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 21:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you read the report by The Economist to see what factors affect the overall score for each country in their index. Also, I wouldn't pay too much attention on the category names - every democracy has its flaws - but rather the scores in different categories and trends. France and Italy also fall into the category flawed democracies, and the UK and United States are also not far away and going downhill.

The latest report summarizes the situation in Latin America as follows: "Despite progress in Latin American democratisation in recent decades, many countries in the region remain fragile democracies. Levels of political participation are generally low and democratic cultures are weak. There has also been significant backsliding in recent years in some areas such as media freedoms." See page 25 for more. --Antti Salonen (talk) 17:07, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

No they are not neutral. What you have here is once more the presumed universality of capitalism. So bourgeois democracy, which is one of the weakest forms is held up as the paragon when it is nothing of the sort. The Gini coefficient or HDI can to some extent be used as a counterbalance to this as actual measures of what power people have in different societies that makes an actual difference in their lives. That The Economist. a bastion of the order, is held up as an authority makes my point. See also my comments at mainstream economics. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 10:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The use of this thing in articles

While I see nothing wrong with an article about this index, I've also seen it used in some articles about regional or national areas as if it really meant something. Maybe if this article were more critical, examining the sources and methodologies or showing explanations or clarifications from peer review, that would make more sense. Without that, I don't think this can be used as a helpful index without some sort of warning. This is an "open content" encyclopedia and the index is based on what some commercial publication cooked up in their private offices for whatever benefits they saw fit, so we can't take it at face value.

While some aspects it brings up may be of some use, this index is mainly a way to try to define democracy to conform with the expectations, points of view and "free market" ideologies of powerful OECD countries. Otherwise democracy means "the leadership or rule of citizens". In our time, citizens are the entire adult population that's considered equal before the law and benefits from a series of essential human rights, so all mechanisms that give these people collective power in different ways are contributing to democracy, from voting, to general economic welfare, access to information, education and health, the role of security forces, the treatment of poorer portions of the population, labor representativeness and initiative, the importance of rallies and demonstrations, protection from commercial exploitation and predation and what the state does to the sovereignty of other countries all contribute. You can't reduce that to "there's lots of voting that analytic market companies consider done as expected" unless you want a form with little substance (which can perhaps be conveniently filled with something).

This index just considers voting and elections, and even narrows that down by asking stuff that avoids certain issues that may make elections less fair to most people, such as powerful lobbies pressuring elections or the elected officials with monetary incentives or other advantages that are hard to track or control. It also gives great value to the foreign influence against "democracy", but apparently it's fine if the country is causing such impairments to other countries. If country A helps destroy the sovereignty, and thus democracy, in country B by manipulating elections, we're supposed to consider it democratic, as long as no one manages to similarly abuse its own citizens from outside. I could probably go on, but I'm simply trying to say that while lists look cool on pages, this index isn't something "objective" that can be used as a measure of democracy in articles, much less if in the article here we can't add more than just an echo of what it presents itself as. Who is like God? (talk) 06:19, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Zaire?

Why is Zaire on the list? The first list was made in 2006 and Zaire hasn't existed since 1997. What's the reasoning for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.96.91.6 (talk) 16:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I've replaced it with DRC--Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 15:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Serious Discussion on Title Change

I think there is scope for a serious discussion on a change of title for this article. I quite realise that the article points out that it is the Economist IU's index and that there is no conflicting article requiring disambiguation, but the tone of this discussion board, consisting largely of "my country is more domocratic (or less democratic) than yours" or "monarchies can't bae democracies" or just plain "this index is a joke" suggests wide misunderstanding of the purpose of the article (i.e. to report EIU's findngs). Mentioning the Economist in the title would not entirely head this off, but it might help. It might also be worth mentioning the economist's self confessed credo of market driven liberal democracy (shouldn't be hard to find a reference, they are not shy about it). Read properly, this is all made quite clear, but it is being misread sufficiently often that we should do what we can to make it clearer. Can we have a reasoned discussion about this? Epeeist smudge (talk) 14:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree; mainly because I have fallen victim to this misunderstanding in the past. --Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 15:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Image Colors

There are several countries that are colored by the wrong category on the used file, File talk:Democracy Index 2010 green and red.svg. Central African Republic should be the brown instead of red and Afghanistan should be red instead of brown. --143.238.91.206 (talk) 02:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Palestine is not a country (yet)

Palestine is not a country, how do I change the table to say "Palestinian Territories" instead? Maybe next year they will have a country and then it will be changed back but currently it isn't a sovereign country-- Someone35  17:32, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Being occupied by a foreign, oppressive power doesn't magically make you stop being a country. 203.59.103.93 (talk) 04:31, 10 December 2011 (UTC) Sutter Cane

It was never a country, it doesn't have the right to vote in the UN, it doesn't have an army and it is controlled by Israel. Therefore it is not a country and it never was.-- Someone35  06:49, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

new index

they have just released the newest one lets get switching — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.105.67.61 (talk) 04:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Done. 48Lugur (talk) 03:13, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Egypt - Authoritarian or hybrid?

The article states that rank under 4 is authoritarian, yet Egypt has 3,95 and is labeled as "hybrid". The original article has Egypt as "hybrid" in a list, but later is written the following:

"Eight countries had a change in regime type in 2011. In four there was a regression and four had an upgrade. Portugal deteriorated from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy”, a development that had already affected Greece, Italy and France in 2010. Ukraine and Guatemala regressed from flawed democracies to hybrid regimes, and in Russia a long process of regression culminated in a move from a hybrid to an authoritarian regime in light of the cynical decision by Vladimir Putin to return to the presidency and because of deeply flawed parliamentary elections. Tunisia experienced the biggest increase of any country in its democracy score in 2011. It moved from an authoritarian to a hybrid regime. Two Sub-Saharan African countries also moved from authoritarian to hybrid regimes (Mauritania and Niger), and Zambia improved from a hybrid to a flawed democracy."

The eight countries are: Portugal, Ukraine, Guatemala, Russia, Mauritania, Niger, Zambia, Tunisia. As Egypt was authoritarian last year, they should be labeled as "authoritarian" this year. More opinions, please? HeadlessMaster (talk) 14:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Egypt's score of 3.95 rounds up to 4.0 when rounded to one decimal, and this is why it's listed as a hybrid regime (4.0 to 5.9) in the 2011 index. I fixed the table in the article accordingly. Antti Salonen (talk) 01:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but why the report says that "Eight countries had a change in regime type in 2011. In four there was a regression and four had an upgrade."? HeadlessMaster (talk) 13:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Added Egypt into the intro section accordingly. 48Lugur (talk) 21:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

THE ORIGINAL REPORT says about "eight countries". HeadlessMaster (talk) 17:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

2012 Map

You guys do realize there hasn't been a 2012 report? The new one was for December 2011. And Camoka's map had tons of errors. 98.209.18.176 (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

• Just to add to this, the 2012 map is still in Wikimedia Commons. That should be deleted as it is somewhere between misleading and outright falsifiation. However, I can't seem to delete this as it's in Wikimedia Commons. Can someone please either delete me or show me how to do it, because there is no way we should have this map, even as an image file. Maybe keep it if it's renamed to File:What I think the 2012 democracy index ought to be.png, but I don't think anyone would want that. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 09:13, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Hungary

I want to suggest to take a closer look to the changes in Hungary during the last years with a majority of 2/3s of the rightwing party FIDESZ. The change of constitution, the new laws against freedom of press and mass media, the changes to the system of the constitutional court and a lot of other changes show: This country is on a way to being comparable with Belarus and Russia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.119.6 (talk) 02:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

hybrid regime in Turkey?

it may be little unexpected for lots of turk. Actually ı didnt surprise because of misleading against current party in power. I must say that until mid 2000s we havent even democray.Whenever majorty gain Primeminister,Army or Laws stopped them and send them jail.We couldnt talk about our religion and anything about religion.Basicly If yu say i am muslim yu were treated like second class people.Its little irronic because %95 of Turkey define theirself As Muslim.Today Many thing changed we can say whatever we want freely but still Lots of People insulting us (i meant people who voted leading party)

No I dont believe Turkey is Hybrid regime But I know that some people unhappy because of the losing control.They rulled Turkey 80 years, Eventhoug They arent more than %25 of Turkey.I am sure Yu can read lots of artical about this,but this is truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.14.78.121 (talk) 10:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That is issue that should be brought towards Economist Intelligence Unit, not wikipedia talk page. EllsworthSK (talk) 20:54, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

nominal type of government

the EIU democracy index doesn't list nominal types of government or contain this as part of its analysis. there are also errors in the types of nominal government listed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.122.30.187 (talk) 03:00, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Colour coded table needs to have lighter/softer shades to reduce eye strain and increase legibility

The colours are way too strong and makes the text barely visible. The very dark shades of red is also an eye strain. Consider choosing lighter shades? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Didemo (talk • contribs) 07:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Possible copyvio

I believe that the amount of material in this article taken directly from Democracy Index 2011 has strayed into WP:COPYVIO territory, and I have asked that it be looked at by someone with better knowledge of Wikipedia policies in that regard. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Beyond My Ken asked me to look at this because I work with copyright concerns on Wikipedia. As was brought up in 2008 on this talk page, there are copyright concerns with this material. Essentially, lists of facts are not copyrightable, but lists that involve value judgments or creative selection are. Rankings are copyrightable unless they are on obvious criteria - for instance "top sellers". Please see Wikipedia:Copyright in lists, which includes some background on how lists are traditionally handled on Wikipedia as well as some background on law from the Wikimedia Foundation attorneys. I've blanked this content and will list at the copyright problems board, but I think it is very likely that we need to come up with a safe way to present as much of the material as we can instead of using the list itself, unless the company is willing to license it (see Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission). --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't the only article the index is featured on, and removing it makes the article pretty much useless. We might as well delete the article if it's not going to have the list. The list is also featured on the article List of Freedom Indices. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.221.196 (talk) 21:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem is the amount of material being quoted. This article essentially quoted the entire graphic from the source, which is copyrighted, and this is not allowed, it's too much material. If there is another Wikipedia article which quotes a similar amount of material, it needs to be removed from there are well. Some other articles quote material, but not nearly as much. How much can be quoted is sometimes difficult to determine, which is why we have discussions like this one, but the amount that was here is clearly much too much to pass legal muster. Removing it doesn't make the article "useless", since we can synopsize the various conclusions of the report, and we provide a link for interested people to get the full report directly. Please see WP:COPYVIO for additional information. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:32, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at List of freedom indices and the amount used there doesn't seem to me to violate copyright, but Moonriddengirl has a much better sense of where the line is, so I'd defer to her judgment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm very hesitant to weigh in on the safe amount, given the surprising feedback I received from our legal team when this was broached to them many months ago. We had always thought we could do, say, "Top 10" out of 500. They felt that this could be unsafe practice, since the "Top 10" was the most marketable. But in terms of the second article, it at least offers comparison to other indices, which is somewhat transformative. There's nothing wrong with linking to the full list from this article, if a direct link is possible, but otherwise we aren't here to reproduce creative works so much as to talk about them. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

That was kind of my feeling as well about List of freedom indices, that it was a creative assemblage of a number of different lists, which is markedly different from just copying one list. Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I asked the copyright holder, london@eiu.com, to wich extent they want to be quoted.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Great. :) Please keep in mind that if they permit reproduction of the list, they'll have to do so through permissionswikimedia.org, and the material will have to be compatibly licensed. Otherwise, we are restricted to the amount permitted by WP:NFC for the same reason we are not permitted to accept material where permission is granted for Wikipedia only. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

This is their reply :

Dear Marc, Thank you for your enquiry. The full list is fine to show. Kind regards, Adriana, Economist Intelligence Unit, www.eiu.com

.

It's possible to ask her to transfer her mail to permissionswikimedia.org, but I can't think they would license their work under a license allowing commercial reuse. My goal was just to understand their POV on the quotation reuse, and it was the initial question, not to ask the economist if they want to become wikipedians. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 14:28, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

They don't have to become Wikipedians, they just have to license their property in a way that's compatible with Wikipedia's licensing requirements, and that means, unfortunately, that it must be available for commercial re-use. It's nice that they're willing to let us use the list in full, but our policies won't allow us to without the proper licensing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Putting a work here under a gfdl license is making you a contributor, even if you don't write in wikimarkup and don't participate in talk pages. Your initial question was asking if putting the full list was a quote or a copyright violation. Asking a group to decide on grey areas like that is often sterile, so I asked the most appropriate person : the copyright holder. They feel fine to be quoted. Why do you want more? Live with that. Confirm their position, but if you want to ask people living on their intellectual production to abandon it, I won't defend that. I'll let you explain the gfdl necessity to Adriana at londoneiu.com --Marc Lacoste (talk) 07:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll be happy to explain it to them; I do it quite a lot. :) If you want to forward their letter to permissionswikimedia.org, please let me know. If you put "attention Moonriddengirl" in the subject line, it'll help make sure I'm the agent who gets it, so she doesn't get a form letter. Not that the form letter is rude, per se, but - well, it's the difference between getting a template and getting a note. If she's being helpful, I'd prefer that she be treated well. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

So is this just in limbo now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.221.196 (talk) 01:08, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not "in limbo". At this moment, the material is a copyright violation and cannot be re-added to the article. Unless and until a license some through to OTRS, that will remain the case. I have reverted your restoration of the material to the article, which violates our policy. If you do it again, you are subject to being blocked from editing. Everyone reading this comment should take that as a final warning, albeit from a non-admin. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:02, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

So if they already told us the full list was fine to show, what's the problem? This reeks as somewhat authoritarian, and I can't say I appreciate the idea of restricting the flow of information.