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Democracy Index 2016

eiu.com

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Re: Democracy Index 2016

#3

Post by ihsw »

It's difficult to take the report seriously when it's titled Revenge of the Deplorables.

That said, America's place in the Democracy Index been downgraded based solely on some people(?) losing trust in the government rather than actual hard data. Personally I think this is no more authoritative than a Facebook survey.

Their method deserves investigating though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Method

Example questions:

* "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".

This poll reeks of the same polls claiming 98% chance of Clinton winning the Presidential election, namely fudging it by sampling only folks with a certain political leaning.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/11/electio...

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#5

Post by Jyefet »

agnsaft wrote: post #2

Are they trying to say that the democracy is now worse because the wrong guys was elected?

It's more to do with people's trust in the government than Trump being elected. As an example - Trump's lies about the size of the crowd at inauguration.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#6

Post by ekianjo »

Oh so that's the "Trump effect" at play right? In reality the democracy has been eroding for many years in the US, especially if you consider all the concessions made to individuals rights since the War on Drugs and War on Terrorism - and that's nothing new, it dates back to the 70s already, and it should have been degraded to flawed democracy rating for a while now, regardless of whoever is the President.

So just another meaningless index that's playing politics instead of looking at facts.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#7

Post by chrisrhoden »

agnsaft wrote: post #2

Are they trying to say that the democracy is now worse because the wrong guys was elected?

> because of a further erosion of trust in government and elected officials there.

Guessing it is actually a combination of very low approval ratings across the board and the fact that the guy who was elected is encouraging distrust in the system.

So if you don't approve of / trust him, you don't trust the government. If you do trust him, you don't trust the government.

Re: Democracy Index 2016

#8

Post by Gupie »

agnsaft wrote: post #2

Are they trying to say that the democracy is now worse because the wrong guys was elected?

No, as the very short article says it's "because of a further erosion of trust in government and elected officials there".
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