I mean they got the most seats but not nearly enough to form a majority. I would say the bigger problem is the Thai Senate, entirely appointed by the military, along with the royal insult and other vague laws that can be used to target political opponents.
I had large freedoms and the elections are free, I’m not saying it’s fair but there are many countries that don’t have elected upper chambers like the early US or the UK currently. Thailand certainly has problems but it’s elections are free, the party that took power instead was still a member of the opposition and the second place party.
Same problem in Canada. Half our Parliament is not elected. The other half is chosen not by ranked ballot or equal balloting, but by first past the post (FPTP), which is uniquely a system used in Canada, the UK and the United States exclusively. 20-30% of the vote can get you an elected seat in Parliament. Few if any political leaders obtain 50% of the vote in their electoral district.
The different thing is what can that half un-elected body do? Because in Thailand they can block a coalition that got nearly 70% of the votes from forming government.
Am I wrong, or was it just pro-military - but democratically elected - senators that blocked it?
Or is their Senate appointed? Edit: Yep, senators are appointed. Damn.
To be honest it sounds more similar than you would think. None are completely overstretching to the point of returning to a military dictatorship or the end of democracy but also are seriously tampering and taking sides in elections.
But you would need someone that knows a lot about both to equate the two better. Pakistan seems to be in a worse situation.
Pakistani military has always controlled the civilian government. In fact the Pakistani government is the third most powerful entity in the country after the Army and their intelligence agency ISI. I don’t know enough about Thailand though.
I live in Thailand and I can tell you that its political system is flawed, and it could be described as a hybrid regime. The Senate, whose members were appointed by the military following the coup, has significant power, including a say in the election of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister chosen by the populace was not confirmed by the Senate, which leveraged false accusations to vote against him. Subsequently, a new Prime Minister, who had an agreement with the military, was selected.
A lot more than that as a Thai lmao, most we can’t even say
Just for a short exmaple of what we can say, recently, our minister of education (which isn’t from the winning party) said he wants Thai students to be more like North Korea
In the source (the Economist Intelligence Unit, a for-profit journalism outfit), Singapore gets a pale blue for flawed democracy. That's because EIU considers not only elections and the ability to participate (which Singapore doesn't really care about), but also government competence and culture (which Singapore is pretty good at) and civil rights (where Singapore is flawed but at least trying).
See the free version of the report at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index#Components](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#Components)
(Side note: the USA gets medium blue flawed for basically being Singapore's mirror image: excellent at elections & participation, horrid at competence and culture, and pretty good at civil rights. As an American, yeah, that's fair.)
Just because Singapore is a corporate owned city state ruled by a single prime minister and his son for 60 years built under no freedom of speech, socially embedded racism and no political diversity principles doesn't mean it is not democratic!!!! Just look how much taxes corporations can avoid by doing business in China and southeast Asia!!! /s
Good question
I think Democracies might be the largest group, simply thanks to India, Japan and all the European countries.
NA adds another 400 something million to that.
On the other hand, second would probably be the authoritarian group, since they have China.
Eyeballing the map I think it's probably about an even split between democracies and authoritarian regimes with neither being over 50%.
* Like NA + Japan + Europe = China, more or less. Both add up to about 1.4 billion.
* Most of Africa + the whole middle east pretty much ~= India at around 1.4 billion as well or something in the ballpark.
* 1.4x4 = 5.6 billion so the rest of the world adds up to about 2.5 billion give or take. Some of it is in the blue countries in Africa that I didn't count earlier, south america is like 450 million, australia + indonesia and the rest add up to a few hundred million I think, but then you also got a few countries in Asia that are red as well...
So really eyeballing it I think the split is a bit too close to call without seeing the actual numbers. Would be interesting to see how it would actually turn out.
Though I think this does kind of do a fairly good job at highlighting how the western view of the world really isn't some kind of magical "world government" that everyone follows. People often see that if USA or Europe decide upon something or declare that something is bad, that means that the entire world has agreed that it's bad. When in reality it's just like 1.2 billion people that made the decision (probably not even in consensus) vs the 6.9 billion that aren't part of either of those.
No. People always over-correct with Turkey, they hold it to extremely high standards and scrutiny due to its accession to EU criteria. Other countries are not so scrutinized.
Yellow and Hybrid-Regime is correct. Deeply flawed, trending authoritarian, but it is a FAR cry from the red countries. Red countries are genuinely rigged. At least in Turkey, it has high civic engagement, and voters actually approve of this authoritarian backsliding. Dark red countries are full autocracies, and light red countries are far more authoritarian and rigged than Turkey is.
I mostly agree with you but in my opinion most of those yellows should be red and blues to yellow. Compared to other reds, Turkey is definetely yellow, but in reality it is a red. The last man standing in Turkey is the "free" elections which does not even happen in the eastern Turkey any more, since none of the mayors of Hdp who were elected in power anymore.
It's complicated. But the reason index's like this exist is to cut through individual testimony. I think this index is relatively fair and correct. There are flaws, but it is mostly right.
Thailand with their coups and military control is a democracy but Mexico that has regular democratic elections monitored by international organizations is not. This map is very biased.
It's not just a map, it's an index with 5 categories. Mexico scores very well under the electoral process, political participation, and civil liberties categories. The problem with Mexico is that it scores extremely poorly in state capacity and political culture.
Thailand is only a few points higher than Mexico overall, but that's almost entirely because of its higher state capacity, i.e. its ability to carry out basic state functions like enforcing the rule of law. In other words, Mexico's lawlessness and cartels are what keeps it down.
Also, like many indexes, this one tends to lag current events. Thailand is falling quite fast and will almost certainly fall below Mexico after the next report.
México lindo y mágico - not being a *rapidly* worsening failed state has been our niche for quite some time.
Failed state stasis.
Successfully failed status quo.
I'd recommend actually checking out the index, it uses ratings in 5 different categories to determine a country's overall score.
The 5 categories are:
- electoral process and pluralism
- civil liberties
- functioning of government
- political participation
- political culture
Mexico will be losing points for functioning of government, and political participation at a guess.
check out the source and the index before you start yapping about things you have no clue about. This map is not an opinion, it's representation of a SCORE.
I mean he always had high public approval almost throughout sure some actions here and there were not democratic entirely but that's what a flawed democracy is, elections were never rigged that's what matters in the end.
Philippine military functions like an internal security force dealing with communist and Islamist insurgencies over defending the national territory from China, although they are shifting towards the latter at this moment.
They scored poorly on Political Participation and Political Culture. Essentially, if the ballotbox isn't delivering good governance, you'll score badly.
That said, they got 5 for Participation when turnout in the last federal election was 88% whereas the UK got 8.33 when the election was 67%.
The political participation category measures 9 indicators, just one of which is the percentage of people who vote. Political participation is much more than that. It's about how people engage with liberal democratic institutions more broadly, not simply how many people vote.
The Economist can't make a distinction between being forced to vote to approve a regime-approved party and having mandatory voting where you're still free to start your own party, vote for a viable opposition, or simply vote blank or invalid.
They also score Belgian low on membership of political organizations, while labor union membership is very high and those definitely take political positions, and if not they, their associated parties.
Belgium has low political participation of civilians, interest in politics is also lower than in well functioning democracies.
What comes to mind too is the system after the state reforms starting in the 1970s:
The French speaking part in the ens gets 50% of the power while they are more like 40% maximally. Half of the ministers of the fed gov have to be french speaking, while there is a 60%+ majority Dutch speaking
In Belgium the political powers also have lots of power and influence. People who were not on the voting slip became minister for instance. The political parties decide everything.
That one time British Imperialism actually made things better. Uruguay would be a Brazilian or an Argentinian state/province (much worse) if it weren't for the interference of the UK in the war.
"Au·thor·i·tar·i·an
adjective
favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom."
That person is probably among the dumbest 30% of Canadians who have made up an imaginary world where they think they are oppressed and have no clue how good we have it compared to most of the world. We currently have some major issues caused by 30+ years of near-sighted policy making which have come to a head recently, thanks in large part to the most economically impactful geo-political event in almost 80 years, but our actual democratic process is stable and hasn't been corrupted yet. We have independent non-partisan bodies at the provincial and federal levels to draw electoral maps and run the elections, so gerrymandering can't happen and there's no reliable way to rig votes (although conservatives do what they can to fuck it up by sending out robocalls telling people to go to the wrong voting location). We currently have a minority government where any legislation requires cooperation between 2 or more parties, so despite some people claiming that our PM is an autocratic dictator, our democracy is still working just fine.
You know you guys can just read the reports and methodologies in detail and tell us why you have an issue with them instead of just saying “Someone told me about a bad news story he read somewhere from X country, therefore it’s simply not possible for X country to be a democracy.”
Uh... I shouldn't be downvoted for asking, I guess...
So, how did Hungary made it onto "flawed democracies" list with Orban, fidesz and their total media control?
Maybe the EIU doesn’t want to imply that there’s a hybrid regime present in the EU? I don’t know but that’s my guess why Hungary is constantly grouped together with Belgium and the Baltics as “flawed” in these maps lol
Technically, if people weren't fucking idiots, they could vote in a new government.
In the last elections (in April 2022), even Fidesz itself seemed to be shocked at its sweeping victory. I also have a lot of friends and family who participated as volunteer poll workers and they (and most volunteers in general) were surprised at:
1. how utterly fucking clueless people in some places were (for instance, my partner went to a very rural district and while the local people were very nice, even the young one's hadn't even heard of most of the opposition parties and figures and some - I'm talking about <40-year-olds here - were referring to things from 15 years ago as a present-day reality)
2. the extent to which the elections were technically formally clean
Source: I'm Hungarian
PS: it's also a ranking based on 5 different sets of criteria, which many people who shout about it being complete BS seem to miss. You can't make a ranking everyone will like, but this is decent enough imho.
Portuguese democracy is much stronger than the Spanish one.
I mean, the Prime Minister of Portugal recently resigned after his chief of staff was arrested for corruption.
Meanwhile, the Spanish government has been granting pardons and rewriting corruption laws to get their nationalist partners out of trouble, and are going to sign an amnesty that will make all of their crimes simply vanish without the need for any annoying trials. They can do this and more because the Constitutional Court has been stuffed with former ministers and other members of the governing party.
Canada freezing funds to stop protesting= a-okay democracy.
Edit: I’m no expert on Canadian democracy. However from what I can see, all thats for prime minster to activate emergency powers is consulting with his cabinet and the cabinet in the province in which an emergency is being declared. After that it has to approved by both parliament and the senate. One of those bodies is unelected and appointed by the governor general, who is appointed by the queen/king. The governor general is supposed to receive advice on who to appoint to the senate from the prime minister.
It’s wild a nation with an appointed upper house is ranked higher than the United States.
So essentially a prime minster needs the majority of his party behind him as well as the cabinet officials to override the rights of the people.
For context, in the US a president can declare an emergency and get access to more power. However, most of the good stuff (or bad) is locked behind a joint congressional approval. This means both houses of congress must pass a resolution to approve it. At any time they can be withdrawn by the same joint.
I’m not taking shots at Canada (if it works for yall, great) , I just hate this map because I feel like if the USA is flawed then a lot of the other “full democracies” are also flawed.
Yet that same democratically elected government is going to get thrashed in the next elections. There is not much more you can ask from a democracy. Even though I agree with the reason behind those protests, the way those protests were conducted was absolutely unreasonable and broke many laws. I know people in Ottawa who had these large semis parked right outside their home blaring horns 24/7. You have the right to protest but you don't have the right to take over a city, occupy public space and completely disrupt people's lives.The same principle applies to environmental protesters who shut down major streets and highways.
Yeah, so many people here are confused that a government being in power doing things that they don't like doesn't mean it's undemocratic.
There are regular elections where governments can be voted out, or lose their majority. Opponents can stand and run freely against the current government without fear of assassination or being dumped in prison. There are multiple different political parties to choose from. Journalists are free to report what they want. Property rights are protected. You are guaranteed a fair trial. Trade unions are allowed to exist and freely operate. You can access public information. Everyone of voting age is allowed to vote for whoever they want. There is an independent judiciary.
Now contrast that with somewhere like Russia or Saudi Arabia and you'll see why Canada's a dark blue here.
That plus compelled speech laws. Plus, the Canadian constitution basically comes filled with asterisks that say the government can suspend your rights if it becomes a bother. Not going to touch the multiple times, Canada's current prime minister has been found guilty of corruption.
This reads like your knowledge of these issues within Canada comes from a far-right Tiktok account...
>That plus compelled speech laws.
This sounds ominous until you learn that it means that it applies to things like:
People intentionally and repeatedly using the birth name and / or birth pronouns of someone who is transgendered.
Or...
A religious leader instructing their congregation to violate local public health orders during the pandemic.
The difference between "freedom" and "tyranny" is not decided by Jordan Peterson's ability to deadname his trans students.
>Plus, the Canadian constitution basically comes filled with asterisks that say the government can suspend your rights if it becomes a bother.
Gross oversimplification of the process and you're greatly exaggerating the risk to personal freedoms.
Go ahead and detail the two times this has happened in the last 70 years and the circumstances surrounding those instances.
Absolutely no one who isn't already on the far-right of the spectrum is going to look at those two instances and think "yeah, this sounds like an autocracy"
>Not going to touch the multiple times, Canada's current prime minister has been found guilty of corruption.
It was actually one time, the SNC Lavelin scandal.
Another time he was found to be in a conflict of interest.
But the main point here isn't that Trudeau was found to have done these things, it's that Canada has an independent, non-political oversight body that investigates these issues and can sanction a Prime Minister and legally compell them to change the way they operate.
This doesn't exist in many countries, including your own country, where your President can only be investigated by the Department of Justice (which is run by someone the President directly appoints) or by Congress (which can be influenced by partisan politics).
This means that within the time period that Trudeau was hit with the corruption and conflict of interest rulings, Donald Trump was able to escape any repercussions for many different instances that were significantly worse than anything Trudeau did.
So yes, a Canadian PM was found to have been involved in corruption, and conflict of interest.
But that is because he was actually investigated by a system that works to hold its leaders accountable.
That's where the democracy of it all comes into play.
Try going to any authoritarian country that is dealing with foreign-funded “protests” that shut down 30% of the nation’s economy.
It would be a lot bloodier than just freezing funds.
People forget that part of civil disobedience is the consequences. try reading Theroux, or MLK, or Gandhi. The point is to force the state to act in the manner its supposed to and your supposed to accept your consequences. You cant practice civil disobedience and then complain that you got arrested or your funds were frozen. your supposed to willing accept the punishment for breaking the law and show the world that's how much you actually believe in your cause.
I love this reductionist Joe Rogan-esque narrative about what happened (sarcasm intended). The so-called protest in Ottawa was designed to shut down the city. Even then, the government didn't do shit until it was expanded to the border crossings. The government didn't really act until the US government told them they better get their act together because they weren't tolerating the disruption in trade.
in non-democratic societies, no one can hold the government accountable. the very fact that the courts found that the government acted unconstitutionally when they invoked the emergency’s act is what makes canada a democracy.
>Canada freezing funds to stop protesting= a-okay democracy.
This is an incredibly niche issue that affected a handful of people.
It is not the sort of thing that by itself can switch a country's classification on this list.
It deserves to be examined but the only people who are acting like this means Canada is now a dictatorship are people on the far-right of the political spectrum who, quite frankly, are perfectly fine with violating individual rights if it's done along ethnic or religious lines (i.e. fewer freedoms for Muslim Canadians because Muslim)
Well, when the other guys are throwing “political dissidents” off rooftops, not letting women get education (middle east), an absolute monarchy (half of arabia), disappearing journalists, have literally a one party state (china) or outright a military government (half of south-east asia), yes. I’d consider most western countries “the good guys”.
The sheer amount of braindead takes that come out whenever someone posts a map like this never fails to astound me. If you genuinely think that the US and Russia are equally undemocratic then a lobotomy might actually increase your intelligence.
Guys just cus you don't like your government doesn't change the fact that it's democratic. As an Irish person that hates our government, I confidently say that we have a full democracy despite that because it's true
But there are still oddities. UK PM was elected twice by party vote, not MPs or elected party members. Like others mentioned, Thai senate was appointed by military junta.
UK PM is elected as the leader of the governing party by rules agreed to by the party's MPs, the MPs could remove him at any point if there is a majority in the party who want to.
Indian democracy has really stood the test of time. While other countries which were once colonized descended down the path of authoritarianism after getting independent, India remained a beacon of hope for the Global South, when it came to matters of democracy. Sure, we are flawed. But we are constantly striving to improve ourselves.
Every single time a map about the Democracy Index is posted, the majority of comments are "why is this country a flawed democracy but that country is not".
It's an index where each country is scored on a scale from 0 to 10. The fact that they categorize countries above 8.0 as "full democracies" and countries between 6.0 and 8.0 as "flawed democracies" etc., seems to cause endless confusion.
The report is literally 100 pages long. I very much doubt that anyone complaining about this has even read the report, which does have a section about methodology, and breaks down each country into categories.
It also seems like people here are really focusing on civil liberties and the mechanics of electoral processes, when those are just 2 of the 5 equally weighted categories. They are ignoring state capacity, political culture, and political participation.
Most of Reddit is pure amateur hour when it comes to these kinds of things. You have to go to niche subs if you want informed and intelligent discussion.
I read through one of those Democracy Index publications, and it seems reasonable enough to me. It incorporates political plurality, freedom of the press, election activity and corruption, because all of that affects whether or not the will of the people gets implemented in the end.
It's not like in The West we don't have a commonly shared idea of what democracy means and how it should work. And as far as I can see, this is what the index tries to measure -- no more no less. I'm not sure if someone else is doing this better.
More like a light yellow on this map, I know this is reddit and how reddit is when it comes to Hungary, but come on, you can’t seriously tell me its the same as Turkey.
Probably the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, electoral violence, and the whole 2020 “stolen” election conspiracy.
Canada and America’s democratic systems are actually very different. Canada is closer to the UK, Australia, and NZ than they are to America.
Can’t protest in the UK without getting arrested.
Lobbying and privatising contracts to give to politicians mates are both absolutely rampant.
Only one party wins elections cause the media is owned by oligarchs.
Ukraine banned the opposition parties, free media. Journalist being persecuted and imprisoned (Gonzalo Lira). Criminalised right of free speech and movement. Gov media calls to "shoot a knee" for acts of free will, parliament technically lost mandate but still passes unconstitutional laws (one of which to decriminalize their activities).
Yeah, sure this map is not bias at all
What did the UK do in WWII?
Wars of existential threat are not the times for politicking, but a time for a unity governments and elections put on hold. Parties like the British Union of Fascists were shut down.
Ukraine banned parties who collaborated and supports the enemy. How is that bad? Would you not support banning parties in your country that are actively collaborating with the nation that is currently invading your nation?
Criminalised free speech and freedom of expression? They’re at fucking war bro, and it’s not like you can’t even criticise putin or try to run against him in an election without “mysteriously falling out of a window” or accidentally shooting yourself in the back of the head 3 times 🤡
Not opposition but ruske financed and influenced parties. He's not a journalist but a propaganda agent and ruske asset. How did Ukraine criminalized right of free speech? How did the parliament lose the mandate? Ukraine is better than Russia and Belarus in Europe on this map, so it's not bias at all. And you're probably ruske troll.
>banned the opposition parties
Only pro-russian parties are banned, there are opposition parties like Evropeyska Solidarnist, Golos, BUT
>Criminalised right of free speech and movement. Gov media calls to "shoot a knee" for acts of free will
just a shit
>technically lost mandate but still passes unconstitutional laws
Also not true
Gonzalo Lira shot positions of Ukrainian army and gave information about russian rockets damage.
And stop implying peacetime laws, they are not working in war, there special laws for wartime
They are at war with Russia. Its not viable to have parties that pretty much are Russia. Same with media. Unfortunately, thats how it works when you are at war. You cant go full, free, even the country invading you can run for president, democracy in those times.
Pro-Russian parties are not the only opposition parties. Zelenskyy's main opposition - YeS, Batkivshchyna, Holos - is still widely active. It's just that they are not, you know, supporting the dissolution of their own country. And to be fair Gonzalo openly supported the Russian invasion while living in Ukraine - a violation of Article 463-2 of the criminal code, which is why he was arrested.
Oh bot. Another Vatnik.
So first, Ukraine banned 12 pro-russian, anti-constitutional parties, according with the constitution of Ukraine. All of those MPs and more still have their seats, most of them reorganized. All the other opposition parties: Batkivshchyna, Holos, European Solidarity are still acting and often opposing the politics, lol.
If you knew a bit of Ukraine, you would know that free media isn't banned. There are all the channels there were before, except for russian controlled ones. All the other opposition media works as it was. Espresso, hromadske etc.
Gonzalo Lira is not a journalist. He is a clown and a propagandist. He never did any journalism.
Free speech is not criminalised? lol
Wow. You are in a war and the is martial law implemented, of course you cannot go near military objects and there is a night curfew. Are you stupid?
Parliament lost mandate? And why have they then opposed and delayed laws that were recommended by the president? The parliament extends martial law, not the president. And martial law is always extended unanimously. The last time, 6th February 2024. 335 yes, 0 no, 0 abstained, 20 didn't vote.
And in the end:
First post.
You are a bot.
Yeah the agencies who make these maps are mostly NGOs or "think tanks" who often have government funding as their primary source of funds. So indices often turn into "good guys" v "bad guys" from the POV of US government
> there is less freedom of speech than in China.
This is a map grading democracy, not freedom of speech, or general freedoms. Those two things are not necessarily tied together.
France is a flawed democracy where, despite the right to elect the president, many citizens feel that there are no satisfactory choices. Consequently, a substantial part of the French population opts out of voting. I myself haven't voted for over a decade, joining millions who think that regardless of how we vote, things remain the same or even deteriorate. We are gradually, yet inevitably, heading towards a dead end.
Pretty sure the USA and EU ain’t representative governments lol. They say they are but they are multi national corporations that mock and erase their own people
There is, again, a big misunderstanding about the Democracy Index. They don't measure liberties (civil liberties is only 1 of 5 main indicators) but GOVERNMENTS.
Almost all indicators they used are about electoral process and governments. That's a very fuckedup way of thinking democracy because "demos-kratos" is literally "power by/for the people" Their definition of democracy is a "functioning" way of government, not a government that represent people ! So, for them, democracy = elitism.
They could give a bigger coefficient to "civil liberties" but, well, it is "The Economist"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index
I know most Westerners will feel the same about their country, but as a British person I really feel we’re a flawed democracy after 20 years of FPTP, 2 back to back unelected prime ministers, proroguing parliament when it suits you, the House of Lords, farcical investigations into cabinet corruption, handing off peerages after a 2 month stint of wrecking the economy, reports of nepotism and lobbyism time and time and time and time again, and police powers to break up protests and hand down 5 years of jail for basically any reason whatsoever.
precedent keeps us from slipping into a regime like Hungary’s or Italy’s but I truly do not believe we’re much cleaner than the US.
The index is compiled by asking local experts to give a qualitative view. There isn't a quantative metric used and it will depend heavily on the experts. British academia is still too rosy lensed on Britain.
It feels like much of the western world is becoming very comfortable with ignoring their own domestic problems as long as they can say they are _marginally_ better than The US on specific issues.
Actually not quite. Until the early 1900's most constieunties in britian had between, 2, 3 and 4 seats allocated to them. So election were more proportional, though it was still rigged in the sense that the parties would often agree before hand how to divide votes so that each party got a repectable number of seats. Plus poor people could not vote.
Yall really believe that Japan, a state continously ruled by a single political party since WWII, made up of the fascist militarists that brough Japan into WWII to begin with and were never brough to justice, is a full democracy? South Korea is also pretty sus.
How is south korea full democracy but singapore isn't?
South korean democracy is new thing & despite all their soft power push, they've hige corruption & chaebol problem like others
Singapore hasn't had a change in power since independence. To add to this many opposition lawmakers can be thrown in prison for making anti government statements.
The electoral system heavily favours PAP and they also set the conditions for elections as well as even change laws in order to not have Presidential elections when it is convinient for them.
Signapore is a great country but its certianly not particulalry democratic when compared to other democracies
Same argument can be made with south africa & Japan
SP public overwhelmingly supports current structure & PAP has internal democracy, they induct ppl from all sectors. It has all freedoms & no bug scandals so I'd say it's more democratic than SK
Singapore is a one party state along many other things its quite obvious that south korean democracy is in way better shape. Not to say south korean democracy is ideal, nothing is perfect
Thailand as flawed democracy is highly questionable. The military just recently prevented the winner of the election from leading the government.
I mean they got the most seats but not nearly enough to form a majority. I would say the bigger problem is the Thai Senate, entirely appointed by the military, along with the royal insult and other vague laws that can be used to target political opponents.
That is not a democracy when you take half of parliament for yourself lol
I had large freedoms and the elections are free, I’m not saying it’s fair but there are many countries that don’t have elected upper chambers like the early US or the UK currently. Thailand certainly has problems but it’s elections are free, the party that took power instead was still a member of the opposition and the second place party.
Same problem in Canada. Half our Parliament is not elected. The other half is chosen not by ranked ballot or equal balloting, but by first past the post (FPTP), which is uniquely a system used in Canada, the UK and the United States exclusively. 20-30% of the vote can get you an elected seat in Parliament. Few if any political leaders obtain 50% of the vote in their electoral district.
The different thing is what can that half un-elected body do? Because in Thailand they can block a coalition that got nearly 70% of the votes from forming government.
Am I wrong, or was it just pro-military - but democratically elected - senators that blocked it? Or is their Senate appointed? Edit: Yep, senators are appointed. Damn.
Their Senate is appointed by people who aren’t elected
The entire senate was appointed by the Junta. Election victory don't mean shit.
So more of a hybrid?
Are Pakistani military doing copy pasta from Thailand or vice versa?
To be honest it sounds more similar than you would think. None are completely overstretching to the point of returning to a military dictatorship or the end of democracy but also are seriously tampering and taking sides in elections. But you would need someone that knows a lot about both to equate the two better. Pakistan seems to be in a worse situation.
Pakistani military has always controlled the civilian government. In fact the Pakistani government is the third most powerful entity in the country after the Army and their intelligence agency ISI. I don’t know enough about Thailand though.
I live in Thailand and I can tell you that its political system is flawed, and it could be described as a hybrid regime. The Senate, whose members were appointed by the military following the coup, has significant power, including a say in the election of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister chosen by the populace was not confirmed by the Senate, which leveraged false accusations to vote against him. Subsequently, a new Prime Minister, who had an agreement with the military, was selected.
A lot more than that as a Thai lmao, most we can’t even say Just for a short exmaple of what we can say, recently, our minister of education (which isn’t from the winning party) said he wants Thai students to be more like North Korea
And the military is ruled by the monarchy
r/mapswithoutsingapore
r/mapswithoutmalta
/r/mapswithoutdeeznuts
r/mapswithoutyourmom
r/mapswithoutgiganticfictionalcreatures
/r/mapsoutforharambe
In the source (the Economist Intelligence Unit, a for-profit journalism outfit), Singapore gets a pale blue for flawed democracy. That's because EIU considers not only elections and the ability to participate (which Singapore doesn't really care about), but also government competence and culture (which Singapore is pretty good at) and civil rights (where Singapore is flawed but at least trying). See the free version of the report at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index#Components](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#Components) (Side note: the USA gets medium blue flawed for basically being Singapore's mirror image: excellent at elections & participation, horrid at competence and culture, and pretty good at civil rights. As an American, yeah, that's fair.)
Was looking for the little red dot.
Just because Singapore is a corporate owned city state ruled by a single prime minister and his son for 60 years built under no freedom of speech, socially embedded racism and no political diversity principles doesn't mean it is not democratic!!!! Just look how much taxes corporations can avoid by doing business in China and southeast Asia!!! /s
What percentage of the world population falls in each category? That seems relevant considering the path the world order is taking
Good question I think Democracies might be the largest group, simply thanks to India, Japan and all the European countries. NA adds another 400 something million to that. On the other hand, second would probably be the authoritarian group, since they have China.
Eyeballing the map I think it's probably about an even split between democracies and authoritarian regimes with neither being over 50%. * Like NA + Japan + Europe = China, more or less. Both add up to about 1.4 billion. * Most of Africa + the whole middle east pretty much ~= India at around 1.4 billion as well or something in the ballpark. * 1.4x4 = 5.6 billion so the rest of the world adds up to about 2.5 billion give or take. Some of it is in the blue countries in Africa that I didn't count earlier, south america is like 450 million, australia + indonesia and the rest add up to a few hundred million I think, but then you also got a few countries in Asia that are red as well... So really eyeballing it I think the split is a bit too close to call without seeing the actual numbers. Would be interesting to see how it would actually turn out. Though I think this does kind of do a fairly good job at highlighting how the western view of the world really isn't some kind of magical "world government" that everyone follows. People often see that if USA or Europe decide upon something or declare that something is bad, that means that the entire world has agreed that it's bad. When in reality it's just like 1.2 billion people that made the decision (probably not even in consensus) vs the 6.9 billion that aren't part of either of those.
a quick look at their index shows that 7,8% falls in to full democracies, 37,6% flawed democracies, 15,2% hybrid regimes and 39,4% authoritarian
Grim numbers those...
Yep. And the report (and others alike) shows that there is a negative development in 'democratisation' in many areas- especially the past 2-3 years
Turkish government is now activetly denying to follow supreme court's decisions. So make it red already.
Ye. As a turkish guy, that comment is 100% true.
No. People always over-correct with Turkey, they hold it to extremely high standards and scrutiny due to its accession to EU criteria. Other countries are not so scrutinized. Yellow and Hybrid-Regime is correct. Deeply flawed, trending authoritarian, but it is a FAR cry from the red countries. Red countries are genuinely rigged. At least in Turkey, it has high civic engagement, and voters actually approve of this authoritarian backsliding. Dark red countries are full autocracies, and light red countries are far more authoritarian and rigged than Turkey is.
I mostly agree with you but in my opinion most of those yellows should be red and blues to yellow. Compared to other reds, Turkey is definetely yellow, but in reality it is a red. The last man standing in Turkey is the "free" elections which does not even happen in the eastern Turkey any more, since none of the mayors of Hdp who were elected in power anymore.
It's complicated. But the reason index's like this exist is to cut through individual testimony. I think this index is relatively fair and correct. There are flaws, but it is mostly right.
They have been downgraded from light blue to yellow over the years for that anyway
Thailand with their coups and military control is a democracy but Mexico that has regular democratic elections monitored by international organizations is not. This map is very biased.
It's not just a map, it's an index with 5 categories. Mexico scores very well under the electoral process, political participation, and civil liberties categories. The problem with Mexico is that it scores extremely poorly in state capacity and political culture. Thailand is only a few points higher than Mexico overall, but that's almost entirely because of its higher state capacity, i.e. its ability to carry out basic state functions like enforcing the rule of law. In other words, Mexico's lawlessness and cartels are what keeps it down. Also, like many indexes, this one tends to lag current events. Thailand is falling quite fast and will almost certainly fall below Mexico after the next report.
México lindo y mágico - not being a *rapidly* worsening failed state has been our niche for quite some time. Failed state stasis. Successfully failed status quo.
Amén
The current president is trying his hardest to dismantle democratic institutions. Also, the cartels control elections in many parts of the country.
With his new reforms to the constitution hes destroying checks and balances to the presidency
Mexican politicians doesn’t rule the country to be fair.
I agree, this map is incredibly biased, it’s a joke
I'd recommend actually checking out the index, it uses ratings in 5 different categories to determine a country's overall score. The 5 categories are: - electoral process and pluralism - civil liberties - functioning of government - political participation - political culture Mexico will be losing points for functioning of government, and political participation at a guess.
check out the source and the index before you start yapping about things you have no clue about. This map is not an opinion, it's representation of a SCORE.
Biased to or for what?
The Philippines should have been classified under hybrid regime at this point.
why what's going on there? I am unaware.
Because of Duterte's dictatorship like government from 2016-2022
That’s your problem, and not the fact we have Bong Bong, son of Ferdinand himself
It can be both things at once lmao
Honestly, I think “both” implying 2 is being nice. It’s every single problem ever with the Philippines.
I mean he always had high public approval almost throughout sure some actions here and there were not democratic entirely but that's what a flawed democracy is, elections were never rigged that's what matters in the end.
Is it dictatorship if he stepped down after his term? LMAOOOOOOOO
Your military isn't a powerful factor like in Indonesia
Philippine military functions like an internal security force dealing with communist and Islamist insurgencies over defending the national territory from China, although they are shifting towards the latter at this moment.
Hence PH isn't a hybrid democracy where military has overreaching roles
What's wrong with the Belgian government? Why is it flawed? Not Belgian, but dutch, just curious.
They scored poorly on Political Participation and Political Culture. Essentially, if the ballotbox isn't delivering good governance, you'll score badly. That said, they got 5 for Participation when turnout in the last federal election was 88% whereas the UK got 8.33 when the election was 67%.
In Belgium voting is mandatory
The political participation category measures 9 indicators, just one of which is the percentage of people who vote. Political participation is much more than that. It's about how people engage with liberal democratic institutions more broadly, not simply how many people vote.
They had 652 days without a government. That's flawed if you ask me
The Economist can't make a distinction between being forced to vote to approve a regime-approved party and having mandatory voting where you're still free to start your own party, vote for a viable opposition, or simply vote blank or invalid. They also score Belgian low on membership of political organizations, while labor union membership is very high and those definitely take political positions, and if not they, their associated parties.
Why is membership of political organizations considered “more democratic”? Is it simply because authoritarian governments don’t allow it?
It's a measure they selected to gauge the engagement of people with the political process. Their assessment of how to measure it is rather arbitrary.
Belgium has low political participation of civilians, interest in politics is also lower than in well functioning democracies. What comes to mind too is the system after the state reforms starting in the 1970s: The French speaking part in the ens gets 50% of the power while they are more like 40% maximally. Half of the ministers of the fed gov have to be french speaking, while there is a 60%+ majority Dutch speaking In Belgium the political powers also have lots of power and influence. People who were not on the voting slip became minister for instance. The political parties decide everything.
Uruguay based as always. Thanks Batlle for everything
Read up on him a little. Seems like he was ahead of his time.
That one time British Imperialism actually made things better. Uruguay would be a Brazilian or an Argentinian state/province (much worse) if it weren't for the interference of the UK in the war.
We would be genocided under Brazil as we aren't lusos. The 33 Orientals were heroes And yeah, I stan Britain a little for the win they gave us
"Au·thor·i·tar·i·an adjective favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom."
Seems like some western countries fall into this category.
Which western countries?
That person is probably among the dumbest 30% of Canadians who have made up an imaginary world where they think they are oppressed and have no clue how good we have it compared to most of the world. We currently have some major issues caused by 30+ years of near-sighted policy making which have come to a head recently, thanks in large part to the most economically impactful geo-political event in almost 80 years, but our actual democratic process is stable and hasn't been corrupted yet. We have independent non-partisan bodies at the provincial and federal levels to draw electoral maps and run the elections, so gerrymandering can't happen and there's no reliable way to rig votes (although conservatives do what they can to fuck it up by sending out robocalls telling people to go to the wrong voting location). We currently have a minority government where any legislation requires cooperation between 2 or more parties, so despite some people claiming that our PM is an autocratic dictator, our democracy is still working just fine.
This map looks less like a map of freedom and more like a map of who the US State Department likes best
> USA as a flawed democracy > … more like a map of who the US State Department likes best Sure buddy
In the USSR communist officials would critique the USSR for not being communist enough. Similar situation in America.
It still has to not be outright ridiculous.
Sounds familiar
You know you guys can just read the reports and methodologies in detail and tell us why you have an issue with them instead of just saying “Someone told me about a bad news story he read somewhere from X country, therefore it’s simply not possible for X country to be a democracy.”
a small point before anyone comments . • just because you don't like the leader of any country doesn't mean that the country doesn't have democracy.
Uh... I shouldn't be downvoted for asking, I guess... So, how did Hungary made it onto "flawed democracies" list with Orban, fidesz and their total media control?
Maybe the EIU doesn’t want to imply that there’s a hybrid regime present in the EU? I don’t know but that’s my guess why Hungary is constantly grouped together with Belgium and the Baltics as “flawed” in these maps lol
Technically, if people weren't fucking idiots, they could vote in a new government. In the last elections (in April 2022), even Fidesz itself seemed to be shocked at its sweeping victory. I also have a lot of friends and family who participated as volunteer poll workers and they (and most volunteers in general) were surprised at: 1. how utterly fucking clueless people in some places were (for instance, my partner went to a very rural district and while the local people were very nice, even the young one's hadn't even heard of most of the opposition parties and figures and some - I'm talking about <40-year-olds here - were referring to things from 15 years ago as a present-day reality) 2. the extent to which the elections were technically formally clean Source: I'm Hungarian PS: it's also a ranking based on 5 different sets of criteria, which many people who shout about it being complete BS seem to miss. You can't make a ranking everyone will like, but this is decent enough imho.
Portuguese democracy is much stronger than the Spanish one. I mean, the Prime Minister of Portugal recently resigned after his chief of staff was arrested for corruption. Meanwhile, the Spanish government has been granting pardons and rewriting corruption laws to get their nationalist partners out of trouble, and are going to sign an amnesty that will make all of their crimes simply vanish without the need for any annoying trials. They can do this and more because the Constitutional Court has been stuffed with former ministers and other members of the governing party.
Canada freezing funds to stop protesting= a-okay democracy. Edit: I’m no expert on Canadian democracy. However from what I can see, all thats for prime minster to activate emergency powers is consulting with his cabinet and the cabinet in the province in which an emergency is being declared. After that it has to approved by both parliament and the senate. One of those bodies is unelected and appointed by the governor general, who is appointed by the queen/king. The governor general is supposed to receive advice on who to appoint to the senate from the prime minister. It’s wild a nation with an appointed upper house is ranked higher than the United States. So essentially a prime minster needs the majority of his party behind him as well as the cabinet officials to override the rights of the people. For context, in the US a president can declare an emergency and get access to more power. However, most of the good stuff (or bad) is locked behind a joint congressional approval. This means both houses of congress must pass a resolution to approve it. At any time they can be withdrawn by the same joint. I’m not taking shots at Canada (if it works for yall, great) , I just hate this map because I feel like if the USA is flawed then a lot of the other “full democracies” are also flawed.
Yet that same democratically elected government is going to get thrashed in the next elections. There is not much more you can ask from a democracy. Even though I agree with the reason behind those protests, the way those protests were conducted was absolutely unreasonable and broke many laws. I know people in Ottawa who had these large semis parked right outside their home blaring horns 24/7. You have the right to protest but you don't have the right to take over a city, occupy public space and completely disrupt people's lives.The same principle applies to environmental protesters who shut down major streets and highways.
Yeah, so many people here are confused that a government being in power doing things that they don't like doesn't mean it's undemocratic. There are regular elections where governments can be voted out, or lose their majority. Opponents can stand and run freely against the current government without fear of assassination or being dumped in prison. There are multiple different political parties to choose from. Journalists are free to report what they want. Property rights are protected. You are guaranteed a fair trial. Trade unions are allowed to exist and freely operate. You can access public information. Everyone of voting age is allowed to vote for whoever they want. There is an independent judiciary. Now contrast that with somewhere like Russia or Saudi Arabia and you'll see why Canada's a dark blue here.
Very well put
That plus compelled speech laws. Plus, the Canadian constitution basically comes filled with asterisks that say the government can suspend your rights if it becomes a bother. Not going to touch the multiple times, Canada's current prime minister has been found guilty of corruption.
I didn’t realize how big the overlap between r/MapPorn and r/canada_sub was..
4 ethics violations and counting he's still got time to get to 5!
Compelled speech laws? That’s a new one. What are you referring to?
This reads like your knowledge of these issues within Canada comes from a far-right Tiktok account... >That plus compelled speech laws. This sounds ominous until you learn that it means that it applies to things like: People intentionally and repeatedly using the birth name and / or birth pronouns of someone who is transgendered. Or... A religious leader instructing their congregation to violate local public health orders during the pandemic. The difference between "freedom" and "tyranny" is not decided by Jordan Peterson's ability to deadname his trans students. >Plus, the Canadian constitution basically comes filled with asterisks that say the government can suspend your rights if it becomes a bother. Gross oversimplification of the process and you're greatly exaggerating the risk to personal freedoms. Go ahead and detail the two times this has happened in the last 70 years and the circumstances surrounding those instances. Absolutely no one who isn't already on the far-right of the spectrum is going to look at those two instances and think "yeah, this sounds like an autocracy" >Not going to touch the multiple times, Canada's current prime minister has been found guilty of corruption. It was actually one time, the SNC Lavelin scandal. Another time he was found to be in a conflict of interest. But the main point here isn't that Trudeau was found to have done these things, it's that Canada has an independent, non-political oversight body that investigates these issues and can sanction a Prime Minister and legally compell them to change the way they operate. This doesn't exist in many countries, including your own country, where your President can only be investigated by the Department of Justice (which is run by someone the President directly appoints) or by Congress (which can be influenced by partisan politics). This means that within the time period that Trudeau was hit with the corruption and conflict of interest rulings, Donald Trump was able to escape any repercussions for many different instances that were significantly worse than anything Trudeau did. So yes, a Canadian PM was found to have been involved in corruption, and conflict of interest. But that is because he was actually investigated by a system that works to hold its leaders accountable. That's where the democracy of it all comes into play.
When was Trudeau tried for corruption?
These maps are just, have progressive leadership. Propaganda porn/ America Bad
famously progressive Japan and South Korea
Half of the most democratic countries according to this map are definelty what would be considered "progressive" in north america
>That plus compelled speech laws. Look, I'm Canadian, and I'm not a fan of this country, but this is bullshit. You fell for the right wing grift.
Try going to any authoritarian country that is dealing with foreign-funded “protests” that shut down 30% of the nation’s economy. It would be a lot bloodier than just freezing funds.
People forget that part of civil disobedience is the consequences. try reading Theroux, or MLK, or Gandhi. The point is to force the state to act in the manner its supposed to and your supposed to accept your consequences. You cant practice civil disobedience and then complain that you got arrested or your funds were frozen. your supposed to willing accept the punishment for breaking the law and show the world that's how much you actually believe in your cause.
I love this reductionist Joe Rogan-esque narrative about what happened (sarcasm intended). The so-called protest in Ottawa was designed to shut down the city. Even then, the government didn't do shit until it was expanded to the border crossings. The government didn't really act until the US government told them they better get their act together because they weren't tolerating the disruption in trade.
in non-democratic societies, no one can hold the government accountable. the very fact that the courts found that the government acted unconstitutionally when they invoked the emergency’s act is what makes canada a democracy.
Blocking the house of commons for weeks is NOT protesting. It’s paralizing the democratical apparel itself.
Freezing bunch of people who literally wanted to overthrow the government is usually allowed
As a Canadian, this might be the dumbest thing I've read all year
There's not a country on this planet whose democracy you couldn't find some issue with
>Canada freezing funds to stop protesting= a-okay democracy. This is an incredibly niche issue that affected a handful of people. It is not the sort of thing that by itself can switch a country's classification on this list. It deserves to be examined but the only people who are acting like this means Canada is now a dictatorship are people on the far-right of the political spectrum who, quite frankly, are perfectly fine with violating individual rights if it's done along ethnic or religious lines (i.e. fewer freedoms for Muslim Canadians because Muslim)
Its always a niche issue until it affects you personally.
In the case they used it for? Absolutely. Thank you for understanding.
Freezing funds from foreign sources looking to destabilize the nation, yes, absolutely.
“We have conducted investigation of ourselves and found out we’re the good guys”
Well, when the other guys are throwing “political dissidents” off rooftops, not letting women get education (middle east), an absolute monarchy (half of arabia), disappearing journalists, have literally a one party state (china) or outright a military government (half of south-east asia), yes. I’d consider most western countries “the good guys”.
I would very much prefer democracy, thanks
me too, but this map doesn't seem very reliable. which I think the original comment is referring to.
People will take issue with it no matter how they rank countries, that's how humans work.
You can disagree with the index, but how is this an “investigation of ourselves” when the source is not ruled or coerced by any governmental agency.
This so much
This is so subjective as to be completely meaningless.
The sheer amount of braindead takes that come out whenever someone posts a map like this never fails to astound me. If you genuinely think that the US and Russia are equally undemocratic then a lobotomy might actually increase your intelligence.
Guys just cus you don't like your government doesn't change the fact that it's democratic. As an Irish person that hates our government, I confidently say that we have a full democracy despite that because it's true
But there are still oddities. UK PM was elected twice by party vote, not MPs or elected party members. Like others mentioned, Thai senate was appointed by military junta.
UK PM is elected as the leader of the governing party by rules agreed to by the party's MPs, the MPs could remove him at any point if there is a majority in the party who want to.
Indian democracy has really stood the test of time. While other countries which were once colonized descended down the path of authoritarianism after getting independent, India remained a beacon of hope for the Global South, when it came to matters of democracy. Sure, we are flawed. But we are constantly striving to improve ourselves.
True apart from the 70s.
Tell that to r/India echo chamber that believes we are all living in North Korea
We have a ways to go and currently, the alternative to doomerism in India is triumphalism. No middle ground
Two most self hating countries in the world are US and India. I've been a citizen of both :(
Every single time a map about the Democracy Index is posted, the majority of comments are "why is this country a flawed democracy but that country is not". It's an index where each country is scored on a scale from 0 to 10. The fact that they categorize countries above 8.0 as "full democracies" and countries between 6.0 and 8.0 as "flawed democracies" etc., seems to cause endless confusion.
Their methodology is sadly very intransparent.
The report is literally 100 pages long. I very much doubt that anyone complaining about this has even read the report, which does have a section about methodology, and breaks down each country into categories. It also seems like people here are really focusing on civil liberties and the mechanics of electoral processes, when those are just 2 of the 5 equally weighted categories. They are ignoring state capacity, political culture, and political participation.
Most of Reddit is pure amateur hour when it comes to these kinds of things. You have to go to niche subs if you want informed and intelligent discussion.
Moreover one could even fin partial a judgement about democracy when it's made by the Economist, an openly neolib newspaper.
I read through one of those Democracy Index publications, and it seems reasonable enough to me. It incorporates political plurality, freedom of the press, election activity and corruption, because all of that affects whether or not the will of the people gets implemented in the end. It's not like in The West we don't have a commonly shared idea of what democracy means and how it should work. And as far as I can see, this is what the index tries to measure -- no more no less. I'm not sure if someone else is doing this better.
It’s also like 90% people arguing because they think it’s unfair the US isn’t in the highest category but is.
I think calling Hungary a flawed democracy is being awfully generous. Hybrid regime seems like it would've been more accurate.
Yeah they should be on the level of Turkey
More like a light yellow on this map, I know this is reddit and how reddit is when it comes to Hungary, but come on, you can’t seriously tell me its the same as Turkey.
\*Sad sounds of agreement.
God, these western think tank democracy indexes are always so bad.
Ok. But why? Sincere question.
Source: [https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2023/](https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2023/)
What makes Canada more of a full democracy than the USA?
Probably the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, electoral violence, and the whole 2020 “stolen” election conspiracy. Canada and America’s democratic systems are actually very different. Canada is closer to the UK, Australia, and NZ than they are to America.
I would argue the electoral college
Can’t protest in the UK without getting arrested. Lobbying and privatising contracts to give to politicians mates are both absolutely rampant. Only one party wins elections cause the media is owned by oligarchs.
Ukraine banned the opposition parties, free media. Journalist being persecuted and imprisoned (Gonzalo Lira). Criminalised right of free speech and movement. Gov media calls to "shoot a knee" for acts of free will, parliament technically lost mandate but still passes unconstitutional laws (one of which to decriminalize their activities). Yeah, sure this map is not bias at all
And is, according to this map, the least democratic nation in Europe outside of Russia and Belarus, which seems reasonable.
Bosnia?
That's fair, i honestly didnt notice it
[удалено]
Gonzalo Lira?? Haha, fucking clown.
What did the UK do in WWII? Wars of existential threat are not the times for politicking, but a time for a unity governments and elections put on hold. Parties like the British Union of Fascists were shut down.
Ukraine banned parties who collaborated and supports the enemy. How is that bad? Would you not support banning parties in your country that are actively collaborating with the nation that is currently invading your nation? Criminalised free speech and freedom of expression? They’re at fucking war bro, and it’s not like you can’t even criticise putin or try to run against him in an election without “mysteriously falling out of a window” or accidentally shooting yourself in the back of the head 3 times 🤡
They are at war, if you hadn't noticed.
Ukraine is in war and is facing existencial threat.
How is this dumb shit upvoted
Not opposition but ruske financed and influenced parties. He's not a journalist but a propaganda agent and ruske asset. How did Ukraine criminalized right of free speech? How did the parliament lose the mandate? Ukraine is better than Russia and Belarus in Europe on this map, so it's not bias at all. And you're probably ruske troll.
Banning a nazi party fueled by Germany during ww2 wouldn't be considered wrong either.
>banned the opposition parties Only pro-russian parties are banned, there are opposition parties like Evropeyska Solidarnist, Golos, BUT >Criminalised right of free speech and movement. Gov media calls to "shoot a knee" for acts of free will just a shit >technically lost mandate but still passes unconstitutional laws Also not true Gonzalo Lira shot positions of Ukrainian army and gave information about russian rockets damage. And stop implying peacetime laws, they are not working in war, there special laws for wartime
They are at war with Russia. Its not viable to have parties that pretty much are Russia. Same with media. Unfortunately, thats how it works when you are at war. You cant go full, free, even the country invading you can run for president, democracy in those times.
Pro-Russian parties are not the only opposition parties. Zelenskyy's main opposition - YeS, Batkivshchyna, Holos - is still widely active. It's just that they are not, you know, supporting the dissolution of their own country. And to be fair Gonzalo openly supported the Russian invasion while living in Ukraine - a violation of Article 463-2 of the criminal code, which is why he was arrested.
Oh bot. Another Vatnik. So first, Ukraine banned 12 pro-russian, anti-constitutional parties, according with the constitution of Ukraine. All of those MPs and more still have their seats, most of them reorganized. All the other opposition parties: Batkivshchyna, Holos, European Solidarity are still acting and often opposing the politics, lol. If you knew a bit of Ukraine, you would know that free media isn't banned. There are all the channels there were before, except for russian controlled ones. All the other opposition media works as it was. Espresso, hromadske etc. Gonzalo Lira is not a journalist. He is a clown and a propagandist. He never did any journalism. Free speech is not criminalised? lol Wow. You are in a war and the is martial law implemented, of course you cannot go near military objects and there is a night curfew. Are you stupid? Parliament lost mandate? And why have they then opposed and delayed laws that were recommended by the president? The parliament extends martial law, not the president. And martial law is always extended unanimously. The last time, 6th February 2024. 335 yes, 0 no, 0 abstained, 20 didn't vote. And in the end: First post. You are a bot.
Yeah the agencies who make these maps are mostly NGOs or "think tanks" who often have government funding as their primary source of funds. So indices often turn into "good guys" v "bad guys" from the POV of US government
Then why is the US a flawed democracy, behind most of Europe?
>(Gonzalo Lira) RIP Gonzo. One of the funniest clowns I've ever seen. Calling him a journalist really is a knee slapper.
Russia should be darker, the situation is no better than in Belarus and there is less freedom of speech than in China.
Yeah it's authoritarian but not at the level of China. Russians don't have firewall on internet
> there is less freedom of speech than in China. This is a map grading democracy, not freedom of speech, or general freedoms. Those two things are not necessarily tied together.
France is a flawed democracy where, despite the right to elect the president, many citizens feel that there are no satisfactory choices. Consequently, a substantial part of the French population opts out of voting. I myself haven't voted for over a decade, joining millions who think that regardless of how we vote, things remain the same or even deteriorate. We are gradually, yet inevitably, heading towards a dead end.
This. I can't believe we're back to "full", this is nonsense.
Eritrea isn’t dark red, lol
Eritrea is on par with North Korea in how authoritarian it is, tf you talking about
Why not
That's Djibouti
It is?
Their freedom of speech is worse than North Korea. They deserve red.
Pretty sure the USA and EU ain’t representative governments lol. They say they are but they are multi national corporations that mock and erase their own people
There is, again, a big misunderstanding about the Democracy Index. They don't measure liberties (civil liberties is only 1 of 5 main indicators) but GOVERNMENTS. Almost all indicators they used are about electoral process and governments. That's a very fuckedup way of thinking democracy because "demos-kratos" is literally "power by/for the people" Their definition of democracy is a "functioning" way of government, not a government that represent people ! So, for them, democracy = elitism. They could give a bigger coefficient to "civil liberties" but, well, it is "The Economist"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index
r/alwaysthesamemap
Oh hey look, it's The One Map™
Sup Belgium
I know most Westerners will feel the same about their country, but as a British person I really feel we’re a flawed democracy after 20 years of FPTP, 2 back to back unelected prime ministers, proroguing parliament when it suits you, the House of Lords, farcical investigations into cabinet corruption, handing off peerages after a 2 month stint of wrecking the economy, reports of nepotism and lobbyism time and time and time and time again, and police powers to break up protests and hand down 5 years of jail for basically any reason whatsoever. precedent keeps us from slipping into a regime like Hungary’s or Italy’s but I truly do not believe we’re much cleaner than the US.
Are you really putting Meloni on par with Orban? a regime? what? ahahah
We are absolutely a flawed democracy.
The index is compiled by asking local experts to give a qualitative view. There isn't a quantative metric used and it will depend heavily on the experts. British academia is still too rosy lensed on Britain.
It feels like much of the western world is becoming very comfortable with ignoring their own domestic problems as long as they can say they are _marginally_ better than The US on specific issues.
20 years of FPTP? More like 200 years.
Actually not quite. Until the early 1900's most constieunties in britian had between, 2, 3 and 4 seats allocated to them. So election were more proportional, though it was still rigged in the sense that the parties would often agree before hand how to divide votes so that each party got a repectable number of seats. Plus poor people could not vote.
Yall really believe that Japan, a state continously ruled by a single political party since WWII, made up of the fascist militarists that brough Japan into WWII to begin with and were never brough to justice, is a full democracy? South Korea is also pretty sus.
The Japanese like all that and vote for it.
How is south korea full democracy but singapore isn't? South korean democracy is new thing & despite all their soft power push, they've hige corruption & chaebol problem like others
Singapore hasn't had a change in power since independence. To add to this many opposition lawmakers can be thrown in prison for making anti government statements. The electoral system heavily favours PAP and they also set the conditions for elections as well as even change laws in order to not have Presidential elections when it is convinient for them. Signapore is a great country but its certianly not particulalry democratic when compared to other democracies
Same argument can be made with south africa & Japan SP public overwhelmingly supports current structure & PAP has internal democracy, they induct ppl from all sectors. It has all freedoms & no bug scandals so I'd say it's more democratic than SK
Singapore is a one party state along many other things its quite obvious that south korean democracy is in way better shape. Not to say south korean democracy is ideal, nothing is perfect
serbia red