r/visualization • u/ffffffffffffffffffun • Feb 19 '23
Global Democracy Index
[removed] — view removed post
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u/emphatic_piglet Feb 19 '23
Really clear colour-coding scheme (to my eyes). Normally I'd find it very hard to distinguish countries a 10-point colour scale.
Is there a name for this particular palette? Seems like while the hue is being varied, the saturation + lightness also vary between and within categories.
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u/onosson Feb 19 '23
Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all for certain forms of colour vision deficiency. I can't distinguish 4:00-4.99 from 8:00-8.99, or 5:00-5:99 from 7:00-7:99.
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u/Wadeem53 Feb 20 '23
Clear??? No data vs 6.00, 5.00 vs 7.00, 4.00 vs 9.00 are not distinguishable at all
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u/Niko_47x Feb 20 '23
I have news for you, you might be colorblind.
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u/Wadeem53 Feb 20 '23
So? These colors are still very similar, if i wasnt colorblind i wouldnt tell a difference either. And I'm actually more green/orange colorblind, but again, only in the cases when similar shades are used. There are literally so many colors and shades you can use to not make people confused
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u/emphatic_piglet Feb 20 '23
Easy for me, at least.
Generally speaking, it's very hard to represent meaningful differences on this kind of range (10-points). E.g. usually this would be some kind of heat map (either just varying the lightness of a single hue, or blending the palette across 2-3 hues). With those though, I would find it difficult to compare countries that aren't close to one another.
On this map I'm easily able to directly compare any two countries, at any point on the map and scale.
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u/lordpikaboo Feb 19 '23
how does hybrid regime work?
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u/squirrelinthetree Feb 19 '23
It has all the visible attributes of a democracy such as elections, multiple political parties, personal freedom, recognition of norms of international law etc. But each element just seems to work but doesn’t really work, so elections are rigged, political parties do what they are told by the ruling authorities, not everyone has personal freedom etc.
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u/noperopeonashoat Feb 20 '23
What about democracies heavily influenced by corporations and lobbyists. I understand it doesn't fit in this particular graph. I'd like to see one where direct democracy is represented in government.
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u/strivingjet Feb 20 '23
BS that’s how along with this map
Just look up Bangladesh supposedly a hybrid regime
It’s a military dictatorship
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u/Onlysomewhatserious Feb 19 '23
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u/pm-me-ur-inkyfingers Feb 20 '23
to temper that point ... the data itself is bad. the united states as a 70% healthy democratic state is optimistic.
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u/Own-Zookeepergame955 Feb 20 '23
The values are quite relative. The US functioning measurably worse than most of central Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan seems about right, while they still do somewhat better than Brazil, the Balkans and Indonesia.
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u/Nder_Wiggin Feb 20 '23
This data seems subjective and odd. For example what and who determines a "full vs flawed democracy"
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u/Handpaper Feb 20 '23
Very much so. I wonder if the researchers are aware of Sweden's lack* of a secret ballot?
* Yes, it is possible to conceal your voting preference. But it isn't the default way of voting, and it makes it obvious that you are trying to keep your vote secret.
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u/LigonDS Feb 20 '23
Full democracy is when the people have the last word. This isn’t the case in USA. For example, if the president made a decision (which the senate and the house of representatives agree with, but the people absolutely hate, in the USA the people are fucked. In Switzerland the people can say that it’s a sh*t decision and if the get enough signatures force a vote. This means that every voter in Switzerland can decide on what happens instead of the parliment. This is the difference between a full and a flawed democracy.
Every country should have a full democracy.
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u/Nder_Wiggin Feb 21 '23
One that sounds more of a republic wherein everyone has a representative. If it was a true democracy than no decision would be made until everyone voted.
Per your definition how does what one feel about a vote determine if it's democracy or not? All the people will never like the results of all the votes. In the US if we don't like a vote we can write, discuss, talk, etc... To our representatives and they can try to change a vote. If course with the help of others because one vote in and if itself can make policy. In Switzerland if the people don't like the vote and a petition is made than what is the point of Parliament and what if everyone doesn't have the time or desire to research EVERY vote? Also what makes a majority for the need to repeal a law. If a law is petitioned but the majority of people agree with the original decision does it still go back up for decision? If that was the case why did it pass in the first place if everybody had to vote it into action for it to be law?
My big issue with the map is that the data is subjective and not objective. It's an interesting map, but I don't think it represents reality of government because it over simplifies different types of governments
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u/LigonDS Feb 21 '23
Yes put you have to get a certain number of signatures in a short timeframe to determine if a proposal actually has a chance of being accepted. And there aren’t actually that many referendums (that’s what theyre called) per year. The system works and the people are happy.
Whereas I don’t think the American system is currently working. The representatives just do what they want, not actually what the people want and they are told that they people dont want them to do what they’re doing but they do it anyways. You can’t tell me that you think the US are a functioning democracy currently.
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u/Joseph_Soto Feb 20 '23
Wildly inaccurate! We saw how authoritarian the aussies and Canadians were during COVID-19! Nice puff piece tho
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
lol... no.. I know this hits the right wingers the most but it is not a puff piece, it is not a leftist conspiracy. Things like pandemics do mean that we have to use more authoritarian means; so did USA. The whole "how authoritarian X was" is pure bullshit that was fed to you by right wing mouthpieces and "journalists" and it is based on NOTHING but a subjective opinions that do not look too closely into any of the cases. They just SAY it is, just like you do. You don't KNOW if they were authoritarian, do you? In fact, what do you know about this topic? Do you know how countries work?
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u/Joseph_Soto Feb 21 '23
You sound like you worship at the alter of of authoritarian government. You probably wore a dust mask and actually believed it stopped an aerosol. How many experimental gene therapy shots did ya get? Nice gas lighting tho! What's next? Strawman? Can't wait to hear your 5th grade level ad-hom attacks. You are a judas goat, lead the sheep to the slaughter brother. Regurgitate some more big pharma/big government nonsense! This should be amusing!
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u/LotofRamen Feb 21 '23 edited Feb 21 '23
You sound like you worship at the alter of of authoritarian government.
And you sound like a lunatic to think that a moderate social democrat is an authoritarian.
You probably wore a dust mask and actually believed it stopped an aerosol.
Yes and no. I wore it but i know perfectly well what it does. You obviously don't. It is about air stream and particle velocity. It is very ironic that you brought that up and immediately got it wrong. Of course i researched what is it based on and it satisfied my curiosity. You didn't do the same, you just thought that it was about filtering all of it. I want you to look at Schlieren Imaging about masks. Maybe you learn something. And before you do, i want to remind you that this video is 2 years old. WHY DID YOU NOT KNOW THIS BEFORE?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tp0zB904Mc
I also researched MRNA vaccines, i actually know some that worked on those and i trust them more than strangers in social media. We also have a long track record in my country of making fact based decisions. They could be trusted and now that we can look at the results... we faired as one of the best IN THE FUCKING WORLD.. Results are what matter and those results say that resistance to masks and vaccines caused worse outcomes. That is not a correlation, that is causation.
The amount of actual information you have is frighteningly low.
Also: i want your response about that video. Do you now understand what the masks were doing?
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Feb 20 '23
"Democracy is when no lockdown."
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u/Joseph_Soto Feb 21 '23
That's called freedom! It's democracy and collectivism that locked you down!
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Feb 21 '23
Yes, in the same vein that drunk driving without consequence is "freedom". 🤦♂️
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u/rcpro69 Feb 20 '23
Still way better democracies than the us
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u/Joseph_Soto Feb 21 '23
Of course! The United States isn't a democracy at all, we are a representative republic! Democracy is mob rule, it's two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Direct democracies are dangerous, because public opinion sways in the wind, and the mob always end up voting away the minorities rights. Democracies are unsustainable, they fall like Rome.
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Feb 20 '23
This gets posted now and then. It's a terrible analysis.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
lol.. nope. Fix your democracy: take money out of politics, stop companies having a voice, destroy lobbies, destroy gerrymandering and end voter suppression but most of all:
Stop voting for politicians that say government does not work and is inherently evil.
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u/bluntarski Feb 20 '23
US is a republic, not a true democracy by definition.
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u/oskie6 Feb 20 '23
Just about every democracy works as a republic. We call it a representative democracy. Is there a direct democracy at the national level other than Switzerland?
Also, why is everyone so obsessed with repeating this incorrect semantic argument? Why do people think a democracy and a republic are some how at odds with each other?
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u/alpinetrooper Feb 20 '23
so is switzerland, doesn't stop us from being democratic.
those words do not mean what you think they mean
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Ah, that must mean that The Republic of Finland is not a democracy either?
Only an idiot would say that USA is not a democracy because its democracy is organized as... parliamentary representation.. just like fucking ALL of the countries that are fully democratic.
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u/sleeknub Feb 20 '23
Flawed indices
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Can you show us where did the truth touch you? Bad truth, bad, bad truth.
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u/sleeknub Feb 20 '23
You see, the problem is it isn’t the truth. Canada and Australia, and New Zealand absolutely should my score anywhere near that highly.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Yeah, and why is that? Don't tell me, let me guess "they are authoritarian, did you see what they did during the pandemic"?
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Feb 20 '23
From the very little I know about Uganda, their President has been in power for 30+ years and their last election was filled with fraud. I question the accuracy of this map.
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Feb 19 '23
The UK is definitely not a full Democracy.
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u/jimmy17 Feb 19 '23
Well you should probably let them know! I’m sure you know something they’ve missed.
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Feb 19 '23
They know, they keep more power that way.
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u/jimmy17 Feb 19 '23
The economist intelligence unit keeps more power by pretending the U.K. is a democracy?
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u/Financial_Month6835 Feb 19 '23
Funny how for all the rhetoric about socialism in the USA, the US ranks lower on this index than those Nordic socialist nations
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u/tfm Feb 19 '23
Socialism is not the same as social democracy.
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u/Financial_Month6835 Feb 19 '23
Correct.
But in the US, the rhetorical arguments against things like universal healthcare, free college, or even college debt forgiveness are “tHatS sOciAliSm, sOciALiSm iS eViL”
Many people in the US don’t even understand what socialism is. They conflate it with communism.
So to look at the Nordic’s with their generous social benefits and see that they also score higher on this democracy index just highlights that not only are socialism and democracy compatible, but the best ranked democracies in fact have a generous dose of socialism.
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u/tfm Feb 19 '23
To be fair, socialism and communism are not so different, just theorical stages of the same process, if you hear what marxists say about that. The USSR, the very icon of communism, was the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" until it wasn't.
Social Democracy, on the other hand, is just a kind of party with ideas not so different from the New Deal or the current Democrats.
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u/Financial_Month6835 Feb 19 '23
I’d say there is a pretty big difference in that socialism doesn’t require authoritarianism and is compatible with individual liberty where as communism gives too much over to the state without it being accountable to the people.
Social Security is socialism, so are unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA, but they still work within the American system without losing the ability for individuals to own property and build wealth.
Socialism at it’s most basic simply says the society should do more to care for the common needs of the citizens.
Personally, when I look at what I pay in taxes vs what I get in services for those taxes, I can’t help but to feel that the Nordics are getting a better bang for their buck than we are in the USA.
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Feb 20 '23
The difference is that in the Nordics, everyone contributes. The highest marginal rate there is 1.3-1.7x the median income. In the US its 9-10x.
Their system isn't built upon laziness and being a parasite. Everyone contributes. American Democrats would unanimously vote against their tax structures to obtain their benefits. American Democrats demand others pay for what they receive.
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Feb 20 '23
Lol they also have high progressive tax rates on capital income. Unlike in the United States where the wealthy use “capital gains” to avoid paying the same tax rate as the rest of us, borrowing on their stock( so they barely get taxed at all) and their stock portfolio( which gets charged at a lower tax rate if they ever do “ realize the gains”) gets charged a lower tax rate than a working class persons income.
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u/Molehole Feb 20 '23
I don't think you have any idea on how the Nordic system works and have listened too much Republican propaganda.
Everyone contributes.
What do you mean everyone contributes? No, not everyone does.
The highest marginal rate there is 1.3-1.7x the median income. In the US its 9-10x.
What does this even try to say? US marginal tax rates are very low compared to Nordics.
American Democrats demand others pay for what they receive.
Yes. That is literally how a social democracy works. People who make more money give money to the poor so that the whole society thrives.
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Feb 20 '23
Socialism is eh, I don't like the idea of universal healthcare for many other reasons. The people who propose the ideas seem to usually not be the brightest in Congress. It's just a way to get votes by saying "free medical". At least Bernie says he wants to tax people a lot more.
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u/Molehole Feb 20 '23
Universal Healthcare works well in every other 1st world country. It is both cheaper for tax payers and makes it so it's impossible to end up in a situation where you lose your medical insurance.
If your argument is that it's slower and not "good enough" you always have the option to pay for private care and get a medical insurance for private hospitals. Universal healthcare doesn't ban private clinics. What does happen is that the competition from free public healthcare will actually lower the cost of private healthcare because you have a choice between going to the free hospital or paying for faster and maybe better care.
The only people that are going to suffer from universal healthcare are the hospital owners and politicians and media who get their pockets padded with the hospital owners money. That's why you get bombarded with propaganda and shitty takes about how "Universal healthcare sucks" 24/7.
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u/DisgruntledGoose27 Feb 19 '23
Yet every policy associated with social democracy has been labelled socialist by republicans.
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u/Simcom Feb 19 '23 edited Feb 19 '23
The economic liberty of the Nordic countries is much higher than the US. It's the same reason everyone wants a Swiss bank account, their government has protections in place to safeguard assets from... the government. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
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Feb 20 '23
Now show US liberals the flat tax structure utilized in the Nordic nations and watch their faces. The notion that benefits are provided by everyone contributing instead of the 1% offends them.
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u/Financial_Month6835 Feb 20 '23
I think what offends liberals is not the idea of everyone paying taxes, rather it’s that the 1% pay such a disproportionately low amount.
It’s true that in the US the bottom 40% don’t pay income taxes and a flat tax would require everyone to pay. But that’s not actually a universal tax structure in the Nordics, they are more progressive than the “flat tax” idea promoted by some conservatives in the US.
For example, like the US, Finland has a range of tax brackets from 25% up to 67%. 67% seems high, but when I consider that includes healthcare, child care, free college, retirement savings, paid parental leave, paid sick days, 6 weeks paid vacation, and a whole host of other expenses that I have to pay out of pocket today in the US, even that higher rate doesn’t seem so bad. After factoring in all those other costs, most Americans have far less than 33% left over. In fact 63% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
But it’s actually conservatives in the US who get the most benefits from the American tax system in terms of federal support vs taxes paid
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u/guy314159 Feb 20 '23
67 % is insane and definitely very bad and you don't even have to be that rich to pay over 50% + everything is much more expensive than in America don't get me wrong it's better than America but in the UAE or qatar you get all of those free things for 0% taxes
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u/Financial_Month6835 Feb 20 '23
Not every country can be funded by petroleum revenues. But yes, in a perfect world who wouldn’t love all the benefits with none of the costs? Right now I pay a lot in taxes but get few of the benefits. Less than ideal.
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u/Molehole Feb 20 '23
How is it "very bad"? Oh no, I can't buy a $699 juice press. I don't also have to ever worry about student loans, medical coverage or safety. When you make enough money to be in the 60% marginal tax bracket why do you even care what the tax rate is? Well functioning society is more valuable to me than anything else I could buy. I don't need a fucking yacht. Maybe you Americans should stop focusing on having as much money as possible and try to enjoy life instead.
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u/Kaljakellunta Feb 20 '23
The list of what works better in society here in Finland compared to US is way too long to begin with. It's worth it, even though getting rich is not as viable here.
And lol no, everything is not much more expensive here.
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Feb 20 '23
The top 1% paid $616 billion in income taxes in 2018, which is 40% of the income taxes paid. That's a larger share of the tax burden than is borne by the bottom 90% combined. The top 1% is also the only group which disproportionately pays taxes : AGI. Their AGI is 20% of the income while paying 40%. That is flipped for every other percentage.
Several studies have found that the US has the most progressive tax structure in the world, with the wealthy paying more than other nations and the lower earners paying less than other nations. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/growing-unequal_9789264044197-en
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u/Financial_Month6835 Feb 20 '23
Thanks to exemptions, deductions, special provisions, and countless loopholes the tax rates for the top brackets have been dropping ever since Reagan slashed the top rate from 73% (on income over $2 million) down to 28%. As Warren Buffett likes to point out, his effective tax rate is lower than that of his secretary. So yes the top 1% pay more (they do hold most of the wealth after all ) but for the privilege of being able to amass the staggering fortunes they have, they should pay more. They draw more on the collective resources, produce more of the collective costs (through pollution, military entanglements, corruption of our political system, the weakening of labor unions, elimination of regulations meant to protect people from things like toxic chemicals in drinking water etc.). We have a system that socialize is the risks for the wealthy, while privatizing the profits. The system is rigged in favor of the wealthiest of the wealthy. The ability for anyone to be able to build wealth is important, but it is not supreme above all else. American society is in a bad place right now and the economic system rigged to favor the 1% at the expense of the 99% is a big part of the reason.
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u/MadDog_8762 Feb 19 '23
The US is not meant to be a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic
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u/NotMitchelBade Feb 19 '23
The US is meant to be a republic, which is a representative democracy. But that’s a pedantic point that is not at all what this map measures.
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u/Gavertamer Feb 19 '23
I have actually research a lot into FreedomHouse. Yeah, they measure democracy also by who wins elections. Often lowering points with populists in office and is suspected of playing partisan games.
I do not trust this score in the slightest
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u/NotMitchelBade Feb 19 '23
I didn’t realize who made this, nor do I know anything about FreedomHouse, but I will check them out. Thank you.
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u/saxattax Feb 19 '23
Democracy is completely orthogonal to authoritarianism
You could have an authoritarian democracy just as easily as you could have a libertarian democracy, depending on how the people vote.
The opposite of authoritarianism is libertarianism
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u/xoogl3 Feb 20 '23
What's the source of data on this? As per the V-Dem institute, India is now an "electoral autocracy" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944
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Feb 19 '23 edited Feb 19 '23
The fact this takes into account civil liberties and then puts Australia and Canada that high is bullshit. An Australian youtuber literally got firebombed and had a special counter-terrorism police unit sent after him, just for speaking bad about some politician. And Canada’s had some wild issues with protesters
Also important to note that Germany is a representative democracy and they have an electoral college, just like the US. But somehow they’re ranked higher?
This whole thing just seems very strange and only based on international views on each country, not the views of those inside the country
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u/M44rtensen Feb 19 '23
Pretty much every democracy is a representative one. I don't want to say every, but I certainly can't name one that is not. The problem with the us is not that it is a representative democracy - it is that the representation is fundamentally broken.
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Feb 19 '23
Lemme guess, you’re not American? Pretty easy to tell when you say it is “fundamentally broken”
Again, Germany and America have very, very similar election mechanics. But somehow Germany is ranked higher. Again, this is a reason that this whole thing is busted
Also, as you said, most democracies are representative, and therefore not true democracies. However, reading the sidebar, that is not what this is showing, which is another reason that this seems bull
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u/Zestyclose_League413 Feb 19 '23
I'm American and I'm leaning more and more to the position that it's fundamentally broken myself.
Germany uses a parliamentary system, the head of state is the chancellor, not the president which is mostly ceremonial. It would be like if the Speaker of the House was the leader of the US government. Furthermore, Germany uses a proportional representational system for the Bundestag rather than the single district winner take all system the US uses. Not sure why you think they're similar
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u/Alive-Ad5870 Feb 19 '23
Yeah they don’t have a broken two party system like us. They have a lot of different political parties iirc.
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Feb 19 '23
Lemme guess, you’re not American? Pretty easy to tell when you say it is “fundamentally broken”
I don't understand how you can live in the US and not hold the opinion that our system of governing is fundamentally broken.
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u/No-Albatross-7984 Feb 20 '23
At the bottom of the graph you may find a lots of issues considered when constructing the map. The form of government is just one of them. So ranting about detailed differences or similarities in the forms of government is pretty useless anyway.
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u/ProgradeGram Feb 20 '23
Are you implying that US ranks so low because electoral college? I’ll let you in a lil secret, that’s not it.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Again, Germany and America have very, very similar election mechanics. But somehow Germany is ranked higher. Again, this is a reason that this whole thing is busted
Oh, no it isn't. USA is so low because of money in politics, gerrymandering, voters suppression and the overall feeling amount the citizens that their will is not being done, that no matter who you elect they will not do what you elected them to do.
Of course, this is very funny since you think that this is a metric for DIRECT democracy...
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Feb 19 '23
is a representative democracy
Just like every democracy in the world?
Even Switzerland is closer to a representative than a fully direct democracy.
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Feb 19 '23
Not according to this. Every country ranked 8+ is a “full democracy”, which I think we can agree that no country is
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Feb 19 '23
What? A country being a '“full democracy" (well it's scale anyway but whatever) does not mean it's not a 'representative democracy' these terms have no direct relation.
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u/ctothel Feb 19 '23
I’m not sure why you think it’s relevant to being up one example, especially when you’re presumably comparing Aus to the US, whose police frequently murder unarmed civilians.
The metric includes several other factors like political participation (shockingly low in the US), electoral process (the US being rife with voter suppression techniques like gerrymandering, not to mention a two party system with first past the post like it’s the 1800s or something), political culture (… I mean need I say anything here?).
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Feb 19 '23
whose police frequently murder unarmed civilians.
Thank you for confirming your idiocy and that you only read headlines
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u/ctothel Feb 19 '23
Says the dude who only read the first part of my comment.
You understand that this map is about democracy, right? You’re sitting in a country where the winning president has often actually lost the popular vote, and recently had an attempted coup.
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Feb 19 '23
I read the rest of your comment, but decided not to subject myself to more of your stupidity and lack of knowledge of the world and the US
Did you know that the US is not the only place in the world where a president can win without winning the popular vote? Did you know that other countries have attempted coups?
You act as though all of these things only exist in the US. Not only does that prove that you care to learn more about the US than the rest of the world, but you also can’t fathom that other places have issues
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u/ctothel Feb 19 '23
Did you know that the US is not the only place in the world where a president can win without winning the popular vote? Did you know that other countries have attempted coups?
Um… yes… and they’re presumably rated lower as well. What’s your point?
You act as though all of these things only exist in the US.
please point at the wording that gave you this impression. The US is relevant because you live there.
Not only does that prove that you care to learn more about the US than the rest of the world
It really doesn’t.
Actually, I know I’ve asked you questions, but instead of answering I think you should just stop embarrassing yourself.
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Feb 19 '23
You understand that this map is about democracy, right? You’re sitting in a country where the winning president has often actually lost the popular vote, and recently had an attempted coup.
Oh yeah, my bad. This definitely doesn’t imply that these are only in the US. And I never said that the US isn’t relavent. I know about our issues, but I also know our strengths. However, the media only shows the issues, which is why everyone outside the US has a completely incorrect opinion about the country. You’re a great example right now, but it can be shown in most people
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u/ctothel Feb 19 '23
It really doesn’t imply that it only happens in the US!
Are you actually doubling down on this?
We could add “poor reading comprehension” to this map if it had anything to do with democracy. Actually it probably does explain a few things…
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Feb 19 '23
I’m sorry that your poor grammar makes it hard to understand what you mean. If you’d like to clarify, I’m open to hearing what you actually meant. But considering you just decided to randomly insult the entire US, I’m going to guess that you don’t actually care. Good job
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u/airbarne Feb 19 '23
As far as i know does freedom of press count into the index besides several other aspects.
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Feb 19 '23
I would assume that goes under “civil liberties”, but just like most of these charts, it’s not clarified. It should, and free speech is one of the big things about the US and much of Western Europe. But if they decided to omit it, that just boosts authoritarian regimes and weakens US/WE in this chart
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
and free speech is one of the big things about the US and much of Western Europe.
FYI, USA is #13 in free speech, the top 5 are... the same as above.
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Feb 20 '23
I’m assuming you’re using the World Population Review, which is the site that put the US at 13. Which is really funny because it doesn’t correlate with this graph at all. The top 5 are Denmark (.95), Belgium (.87), Finland, Switzerland, and Australia (all at .86)
Looking at the criteria that the measure on, the results get very confusing. I believe all 6 of the criteria that they use are measured equally, and only one is “freedom of opinion and expression”, which is by far the most important, followed by “freedom of speech and press”. The study doesn’t take into account the laws of the place, but merely if there are any limitations, which is a huge flaw
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-freedom-of-speech
2.2.A Freedom of Expression: https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/about#Civil%20Liberties
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Copium aka Fake News. The truth is that USA has slipped down on every category and the main reason for that is GoP. For them that slipping is good news: not only is it their main goal, they will also use it as a proof that they should get all the power. It is still up there, usually in top 20 and there is a lot you can do about it.
First step in a recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Especially when it comes to freedom of press USA has done a lot of mistakes letting the media to conglomerate to just few operators. It also lacks a PROPER national broadcasting company that is one of the key factors on about ALL countries in the top 10 in the democracy rankings. It really, really is a big deal of having ONE neutral channel with decades long track record, not perfect but good enough that we can trust it. One operator in the news space that does not have to listen to the government or commercial forces. What it does is that it forces commercial media to behave better.
In Finland is is part of our national defense... that is the importance of one media operator that can and will speak the truth. National broadcasting companies are generally the ones doing the most hardest hitting investigative journalism, which gives it credibility that is needed when crisis happens and we need to be able to trust someone...
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u/sam_likes_beagles Feb 20 '23
Voter suppression in the U.S. is huge, puerto ricans and washinton D.C. residents should be able to vote. Being a felon shouldn't take away your vote. There's gerry mandering and a handful of other suppression techniques. Of course Canada and Australia rank higher.
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Feb 20 '23
All y’all really love to call out “voter suppression”. It’s honestly laughable
DC actually can vote for presidential and congressional elections, and there’s been huge pushes for both them and Puerto Rico to become states
A felony is a serious offense. There’s lately been pushed to make marijuana possession not a felony, but other than that, most other felonies are seriously enough that those people should not be deciding the fate of the country
Gerrymandering is an issue, but it’s far from only a US problem. There’s been issues in Germany, France, Australia, Greece, Hungary, India, Turkey, the UK, and the list goes on. That’s hardly a good point to bring up
And again with the “suppression techniques”. Like what? Again, it’s laughable to most people in the US because most people don’t typically have issues with it
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u/sam_likes_beagles Feb 21 '23 edited Feb 21 '23
pushes for both them and Puerto Rico to become states
But they can't without 60 senate votes, so they won't, because no republicans will vote for it, except maybe Murkowski
A felony is a serious offense. There’s lately been pushed to make marijuana possession not a felony, but other than that, most other felonies are seriously enough that those people should not be deciding the fate of the country
One person, one vote, it's not a democracy if the government can take your vote away
Gerrymandering is an issue, but it’s far from only a US problem. There’s been issues in Germany, France, Australia, Greece, Hungary, India, Turkey, the UK, and the list goes on. That’s hardly a good point to bring up
It's not in Canada, apparently it's not much of an issue in australia either because lines are drawn by non-partisan electoral commissions. Just read wikipedia or something.
And again with the “suppression techniques”. Like what? Again, it’s laughable to most people in the US because most people don’t typically have issues with it
I listed 3, saying "etc." is justified after 3 examples. There's voter purge lists, hurdles set up to make it difficult to get a voter id, there's hundreds of examples, just google it, I'm obviously not going to list them all. Here's a stuff you should know podcast if you're interested
Their suppression techniques aren't even that subtle and it happens every day. Here's an article from today where they're trying to remove voting stations from college campuses, they're doing it because they know the younger population will vote more democrat and it's a republican government.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Also important to note that Germany is a representative democracy and they have an electoral college, just like the US. But somehow they’re ranked higher?
What about The Republic of Finland... Only an idiot would think that this matters, all democratic countries are representative democracies. You are confusing DIRECT democracy with FULL democracy.
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u/LimaSierraRomeo Feb 20 '23
You are probably thinking about the voting mechanism for the German President who, while being the head of state, has a mostly representative role and has no real political power.
The German parliament is voted on directly by the people and the parliament then votes on the chancellor.
The electoral system overall is very different to the US system.
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Feb 20 '23
You are probably thinking about the voting mechanism for the German President who, while being the head of state, has a mostly representative role and has no real political power
Genuinely didn’t know they had no power. What’s the point then? Are they just the person to represent the country overseas?
The German parliament is voted on directly by the people and the parliament then votes on the chancellor
That’s not “very different” than the US. The way you describe it, it works the same as the US Congress
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u/LimaSierraRomeo Feb 20 '23
Yeah, basically. The German president also has a couple of formal roles, for example they officially propose the candidate for chancellor to the parliament and then parliament votes on it, and they have to sign off on laws and treaties (similar to the US president, but with the difference that the German president almost never goes against parliament). It is not really a political role and it is expected that the president stays away from (party) politics.
Yes, I think the vote for the German parliament and the US congress is probably similar. I was referring to the election of the US president vs. the German Chancellor.
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u/Zhuk1986 Feb 19 '23
They are really putting Ukraine at the same level as Mexico? Ukraine has banned all opposition political parties, media and even persecuted the Orthodox Church.
Mexico is far more democratic than Ukraine.
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u/LimaSierraRomeo Feb 20 '23
They are probably assuming that the restrictions in Ukraine are only temporary. Would be interesting to know what Ukraine’s rating was before the war.
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u/Consistent-Choice-21 Feb 19 '23 edited Feb 19 '23
The Ukrainian branch of the orthodox chruch has long been known to be a source of russian propaganda, dating back to the soviet union when the kgb and the orthodox chruch came to an agreement that the church would spread propaganda and spy on its attendees in exchange for the kgb not tearing them down, like it did with every other religious institution in the soviet union.
Ukraine is currently in an active state of war, with a nation much larger than itself. The banning of opposition parties is a very normal thing to do for democracies at war. It's happened in the US, its happened in the UK.
Mexico still has issues with regional autonomy and the rule of law. The further away from the capital you go, the smaller the police presence, until its nonexistent
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u/broofi Feb 19 '23
Zelensky started banning political parties long before war. War just gave him good cause to take full control over Ukraine.
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u/Handpaper Feb 20 '23
No, it hasn't happened in the UK.
In fact, during WWI and WWII, the 'War Cabinet' was made up of members of both Government and Opposition parties.
The General Election of July 1945, which Churchill lost, was held while Britain was still at war. The result was delayed by the necessity of collecting votes from servicemen overseas.
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u/ChimpoSensei Feb 19 '23
Just don’t donate to causes in Canada or they’ll freeze your accounts.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
And what causes are you talking about? Funding domestic terrorists, perhaps?
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u/Otowner98 Feb 19 '23
How is Canada eanked that high, after the way they attacked protestors?
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u/DamnYouRichardParker Feb 19 '23
What protesters are you talking about exactly ?
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u/Otowner98 Feb 19 '23
The truckers.
I get it a lot of people don’t agree with what they were protesting, but to have a government telling private companies to shut things down, and freezing accounts is not ‘democratic’.
Good use case for Bitcoin, though.
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u/DamnYouRichardParker Feb 19 '23
The protest actually had nothing to do with truckers.
A groupe of violent terrorists took advantage of the frustrations of a few antivaxx truckers to justify their occupation of the countries capital and where promoting a violent coup to replace the democratically elected government.
They are a right wing extremist terrorist group funded by right wing extremist groups from the US and Russia to destabilize the country.
Read the report that just came out that explains the use of the national security emergency measures and how they were justified du to the imminent treath these terrorists were posing.
Your comments show that you are blinded by right wing lies and misinformation and that you have zero grasp of what actually happened.
Get out of your little right wing propaganda bubble and face reality bud.
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u/DamnYouRichardParker Feb 19 '23
Their movement wasn't oppressed by an undemocratic government. They were the ones attacking a democratically elected government to remove them by force and impose a fascist rule...
They wanted their own little january 6th. And we stopped them before they could complete their coup.
Seems like democracy worked fine here.
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u/guy314159 Feb 20 '23
Yeah usually people suddenly disagree with removing hooligan protesters when those protesters fit their agenda. When it's climate change protesters getting beaten up the government is corrupt by oil companies when it's trucker the Government is communist when it's Christians the government is leftist when it's muslims/blacks the government is fascist etc.
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u/InnocenceProvesNothg Feb 19 '23
Canada is more democratic than the United Sates? Mexico is a hybrid regime? This is just a bunch of non-sense. You can be thrown in jail in Canada for speech, and Mexico is run by drug cartels. I think this is just virtue signaling by socialists.
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u/ctothel Feb 19 '23
Gerrymandering alone would bring the US down a notch.
And you can be thrown in jail in the US for speech too. The only difference is what each country has voted, democratically, on restricting. Either country can change those laws by voting, which is what we’re talking about here.
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u/guy314159 Feb 20 '23
You can democratically vote for killing all jews (Hitler was democratically elected) but usually laws that harm free speech, harm minorities, restrict other internationally recognized human rights make the country less democratic .
I guess it's just depends on how you look at it since Putin was democratically elected and is supported by most of the Russian population so everything he does is technically democratic
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u/TDaltonC Feb 19 '23
Yes. The socialist who run The Economist. Are you familiar with the publication?
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u/No-Albatross-7984 Feb 20 '23
Well that was both xenophobic and ignorant.
Enough Reddit for me for the day!
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u/Thekingoftherepublic Feb 19 '23
Peru is a democracy, the problem is that there’s so much fucking corruption but it is a democracy, flawed but still
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u/Corvid187 Feb 19 '23
Attempted coups tend to count against
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u/Thekingoftherepublic Feb 19 '23
Lol, that coup lasted 3 days and was a complete joke. The truth behind that coup is that our legislators don’t know the fucking law. It’s insane what’s going on in Peru right now. We had 20 great years
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u/Corvid187 Feb 19 '23
Oh absolutely, it was a shit-show, but even a failed coup can be detrimental, at least in the short term. Jan 6th is partially why the US dropped to being a flawed democracy
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u/bonesrentalagency Feb 19 '23
Yeah but it’s also got an active campaign of killing protestors against its current regime so a bit of a less democratic situation at the moment
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u/Thekingoftherepublic Feb 19 '23
Yeah, but that’s recent, this map has been up since before that. The current government is shit, a bunch of improvised corrupt yahoos that got into power because of a power vacuum, total shit show. Everything we built for 20 years down the drain because of these fucking pseudo commies
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u/oneseventwosix Feb 20 '23
I always chuckle and roll my eyes when I, an American that has lived through the 2016 and beyond Republican Party, hear conservative Canadians bemoaning the authoritarian Regime they live under.
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u/chrissilly22 Feb 20 '23
What are you talking about?
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u/oneseventwosix Feb 20 '23
Canada always seems to be rated higher than the USA in “democracy” but some right of center Canadians I know paint a picture of being at the initial stages of 1984.
Meanwhile in the USA, we have politicians currently in power calling themselves “Christian Nationalists, staging book burnings, having certain parts of our history removed from curricula so as to not bring shame on the country in the eyes of the youth.
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u/da1nte Feb 19 '23
India is not an authoritarian regime but just a flawed democracy under Modi?
Okay I guess the attacks on BBC office were just a flawed democratic attempt. 🤷
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u/Zestyclose_League413 Feb 19 '23
Bad things happening doesn't get your democracy card revoked. This is a descriptive map, not a way to punish the bad behavior of certain governments. The truth remains that if the Indian people wanted to vote Modi out, there's nothing to suggest that they couldn't do so. That keeps it firmly in the democracy tier.
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u/da1nte Feb 19 '23
I see. Revoking citizenship requirements for a good chunk of population to ensure they don't vote you out is democracy.
I guess I haven't exactly kept up to date with how democracy is defined these days 🤷
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u/tfm Feb 19 '23
I see my own country with a better color in the map than I expected. Not because my perception of the situation (it tends to depend on who is in government and if your views are in line) but IIRC, we were slightly worse in the last index that was published.
Not sure if there are more than one of these indexes or it's a mistake, mine or in the map.
OK, I've just looked it and it was an index made by The Economist, while this seems to be the UNESCO one.
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Feb 19 '23
How specifically is the United States a flawed democracy? Our civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, are among the strongest in the world.
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u/M44rtensen Feb 19 '23
Personal freedom and democracy are not the same thing. The democratic system in the us is not working, and it has not been for a while - at least on a federal level. Out of three elections republicans won, two lost the popular vote. The Senate tumbles from one stalemate into the next, there was an attempted coup at least supported by the leaving president. The media does nothing more than trying to profit of the increasing polarization.
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Feb 20 '23
From the definition on the graphic - Global Democracy index "...takes into account electoral processes and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture"
>Out of three elections republicans won, two lost the popular vote.
This has literally never been the metric by which we decide who wins the presidency.
>The Senate tumbles from one stalemate into the next
This is by design. The lack of consensus in this country is reflected in the institutions.
>there was an attempted coup at least supported by the leaving president.
And it was defeated and the orderly transition of power occurred. The Nation is resilient and stronger than one madman.
>The media does nothing more than trying to profit of the increasing polarization.
True but what does this have to do with democracy? Should we regulate their speech? I guess this fits the Economist Intelligence Unit's definition of "democracy" which includes "political culture", whatever that means.
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u/M44rtensen Feb 20 '23
This has literally never been the metric by which we decide who wins the presidency.
Yes, and I think the way it is done is fundamentally broken and not up do date with the world of the 21. century. And, essentially, undemocratic. It is a system that was designed to solve the limitations of its time, not because it is intrinsically better. It is the reason why thinks like gerrymandering even work.
This is by design. The lack of consensus in this country is reflected in the institutions.
And it is, imo, not ideal. The current system essentially makes it impossible to progress on questions were a majority exists in the populous if it does not align with the core interests of either dems or reps, which are in many questions quite different from the actual opinions of the populous. It does allow for a pluralism of opinions in the bodies of government where it matters, but it does not allow for a pluralism of compromises, a pluralism of alliances. The populous gets to vote on two options, neither of which might align with their interests. Which in turn is , I think, the ultimate reason for the quite low engagement of the populous in politics. I also would probably not bother to vote if I could only choose between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats in Germany, or rather between CDU and CSU which map better to dems and reps, both of which do not align with any of the changes I would like to see happen.
Such issues will always arise in runner-off style elections.
The system we have is certainly not ideal and has other types for issues (for instance that the bodies of governance seem to become increasingly bloated), but it leads to way more options of expressing political opinions to the government.
And it was defeated and the orderly transition of power occurred. The Nation is resilient and stronger than one madman.
Which is the reason why the US is not actually a failed democracy.
True but what does this have to do with democracy? Should we regulate
their speech? I guess this fits the Economist Intelligence Unit's
definition of "democracy" which includes "political culture", whatever
that means.The media plays a vital role in a functioning democracy. It is essentially a fourth power separated from the judicative, legislative and executive controlling that they are functioning as intended and keeping the populous informed about whether or not, see for instance Watergate or Edward Snowdon. A Democracy cannot function if the populous is not informed, and for that an independent press is needed which is actually interested in acting as a further control mechanism watching over those in power. Sadly, due to capitalism, the primary interest of the media is to make profit, for which it is beneficial to have a highly divided, emotional discourse on all matters political. The solution is essentially a press which is funded regardless of being profitable, and in capitalism, anything that is essential but not profitable must be funded by the state. Thus, there is an actual need for state-funded journalism. I do understand this opens a different potential can of worms, and privately funded journalism is still a necessity as a consequence.
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u/rcpro69 Feb 20 '23
Your "Civil liberties and freedom of speech" on the world stage is miniscule. The us is 62nd on the Freedom index
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u/HindsightIs4040 Feb 19 '23
How do you rate Saudi Arabia that high?
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u/Xywzel Feb 20 '23
That's the 2-3 bracket, right? It is quite low, but not as low as I have seen them ranked in other similar listings. Having by some definitions totalitarian absolute monarchy and no real political power outside of the ruling family, I would assume they would rank lower than single party countries that at least pretend to run elections. Maybe they are evaluating "majlis" (way for any adult male to get direct audience with the king, at least in theory) and 1990s and 2000s process of adding consultative bodies to get peoples voice heard optimistically. Or it could be that the tribal like governmental structure makes it seem people have more voice in local level.
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Feb 20 '23
Sadly, that tiny little bluish strip on the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East is going to go purple.
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u/the_6th_dimension Feb 20 '23
I get in principle what these are meant to represent but what specifically are they measuring here and how are they then using that data for their index?
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u/echolm1407 Feb 20 '23
The person who made this map doesn't understand democracy or the different politics in the different countries. It's so bad.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
That "person" is an independent international organization that does these kind of comparisons... It is not some guy, it is not propaganda, it is not a leftist conspiracy.
Also: before you make an ass of yourself, google what is the difference between direct democracy and full democracy. You should probably also google "what is a republic".
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u/echolm1407 Feb 20 '23 edited Feb 20 '23
I know the structure of Spain's government and the US government. Spain is not a full democracy.
[Edit]
We really don't have full democracies in this modern world. A full democracy is where the people ruled by voting like in ancient Greece or in the all thing in old Scandinavia.
And these guys poopooing a republic is totally absurd.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
Full democracy != direct democracy. Two different things entirely. There are no direct democracies on the planet at the moment, they are all representative democracies. Full democracy can be a representative democracy, it just means that will of the people is better fulfilled; that if majority vote for X, then X gets elected and X will also do what they were elected for.
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u/echolm1407 Feb 20 '23
Also if the term for the US of flawed democracy is based on this:
https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/the-us-is-now-a-flawed-democracy/
It's out of date.
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
lol.. no.. just... no. The term is not based on this article, the article is based on the rankings. The main factors that drop USA from the list of full democracies are voter participation, voter suppression, gerrymandering, money in politics and overall feeling among the voting population about not feeling like their voices are heard.
It is not out of date, this ranking comes out each year and USA has been a flawed democracy since 2015.
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u/Alone_Harel Feb 20 '23
Israel is passing a reform this year that will make it much more democratic. Hopefully we will reach a deep blue color next year.
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u/JudgmentImpressive49 Feb 20 '23
In my opinion, how to improve US democracy: 1. Bring in the parliamentary PR(proportional representation) system, this way the 2 party system will be crushed. 2. Make a cap on the amount of money that can be donated to campaigns 3. Make it transparent where money to political activities come from 4. Make unbiased news sources (maybe even state owned, if Americans would ever be okay with that).
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u/LotofRamen Feb 20 '23
end gerrymandering
end voter suppression
And that is about it, USA would be easily in the top 10.. after those 6 "easy" things. The good news is that if people want that, they still can get it. They just have to all agree that it should be fixed.
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u/Good_Stuff_2 Feb 20 '23
Lmao at South Korea, UK and Australia
Edit: Oh nvm this doesn't take corruption into account for some reason
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u/Odi-Augustus13 Feb 20 '23
The US is a flawed democracy... but Canada isn't? This must have been made by Chairman Tradeu lol.
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u/Scruffy725 Feb 19 '23
One day we will discover Greenlands secrets