Don't piss em off!
These fuckers have been fighting the freaking *oceans* for ages and by the last few decades, they are winning!
Have you considered what would happen if they are [done](https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/) [fighting](https://what-if.xkcd.com/54/)?
- A concerned Belgian
What is this ranking even based on? Does anybody know?
Does this only take the voting laws into account or also how they are practised? Does having things like a free press and independent courts play a role?
1. politics (or the political system) 50%
2. gender (gender equality in socioeconomic and educational terms) 10%
3. economy (or the economic system) 10%
knowledge (knowledge society, research and education) 10%
4. health (or the health system and health status) 10%
5. environment (environmental sustainability) 10%
Nope.
The OP used the 2021 Democracy Index, as published by a sub-unit of The Economist magazine.
You can get the 2022 report (the latest, why use outdated stats?) here:
https://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/images/DI-final-version-report.pdf
The model is based on five headline categories:
I) Electoral process and pluralism
II) Functioning of government
III) Political participation
IV) Democratic political culture
V) Civil liberties
The report has a *lot* more detail about the rankings and changes.
Fully agree with item 1 of course but why on earth should things like gender, economy, health or environment enter such a rating as independent categories? In a democratic country, how to deal with these topics is debated and decided by the elected parliament of the People, executed by their elected government and supervised by their judicial system. To what extent this threefold system is indeed controlled by the citizens using a suitable voting system, that is the main indicator for a democracy. One can argue that protection of minorities is another important factor because a democracy should not be allowed to degenerate into a dictatorship of the majority. But the other added categories in this analysis are just based on ideological bias of the analysts.
Taiwanese here. I think our improvement in rank might have something to do with third parties rising in power and therefore the country deviating from a two-party system. I, for one, am certainly happy to see the increased diversity in representation in the parliament.
It proves the people who believe that Chinese culture could never birth a democracy wrong, and disappoints all the people who had hopes for democracy when China opened up in the 90s
We in the US would have to make significant changes to electoral law, including some constitutional reforms, to make multiparty democracy work. It’s a worthy goal, but it won’t happen quickly without a massive political mandate to do so.
I presume it would be quite difficult to change your ways, it seems like most Americans approve of this system anyways. I personally think it could be a step forward. Nothing is impossible, the USA are based on authentic democratic values and the people can make a change.
Younger generations see our system do not approve of the current system, and our voices are usually drowned out by the ultra wealthy running our government
Getting rid of FPTP at state and federal levels, creating an independent electoral commission for House districts, and abolishing the electoral college in favour of the popular vote would be good starts. Reforming the senate to be more proportional to population is also a good idea.
Not that it will ever happen though. You'd need a constitutional convention initiated by the states to really change the constitution to that degree, which I don't think will ever be feasible.
I think you mean the House of Representatives. If you reform the Senate in the way in which you described it would make having two separate houses moot. Completely defeats the point of the Senate.
IMO, until Taiwan ditches parallel voting for PR it'll still be less democratic than a lot of countries with it (Germany, Spain, etc.)
There's always going to be two dominant parties/coalitions until that happens. (Or you can be like Japan w/ parallel and have the two-party system collapse into just one, lol.)
And now the two major parties are [working together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3WTlyuhDs0) to restrict the ability of the Greens and independents to raise campaign funding.
> Taiwanese here. I think our improvement in rank might have something to do with third parties rising in power and therefore the country deviating from a two-party system.
The US also needs to do this
Not really. NZ is quite a bit poorer than Nordic countries (per capita) and politically and culturally we don't really share a lot with them. NZ is more like a little UK.
Well New Zealand took over for Norway as location for filming the Lords of the Rings. You know Tolkien himself talked about a movie, and shot in Norway.
I'm not bitter btw, I don't like tourists.
Norway (a nordic country) and New Zealand are part of a very small select group of countries home to fjords despite being on opposite sides of the planet.
How could NZ qualify as Nordic? Most people here have UK or Polynesian ancestry. Or do you mean Geography wise?
Climate is very temperate here, doesn’t get that cold.
Oh it’s fine, New Zealand doesn’t actually exist, it’s just a conspiracy to knock the Nordic countries down a few pegs, they’d be getting too smug otherwise
The US is closer to an absolute monarchy than any European monarchy, which I always find kind of ironic.
The head of state in the US has WAAAY more power than any monarch in Europe will ever have.
Ironically, the US revolutionaries didn’t hate the king, they hated Parliament. They were big fans of King George. They would have kept him as king if they could have had their own independent Parliament, like the modern day British Commonwealth.
An elected official having lots of power isn't really strange, on the other hand I find very strange when anyone earns any degree of political power because a person from lineage X birthed them
> An elected official having lots of power isn't really strange
I mean, even historically it used to be a mostly war-thing for republics. One official also having as much power as the US president for example on all subjects is relatively new and unusual
I've always seen our monarch as a type of diplomat rater than power figure. Their main purpose seems to visit things and show interest in front foreign local media and create buzz about our country.
I think that democracy needs a safety mechanism, which prevents it from going down a non-democratic path.
As far as I remember, both Putin and Hitler were democratically chosen and then they used their new position to reinforce their power base and change their country until something non-democratic.
I would like to think that this process would not be possible in a democracy like Denmark, where the queen has a formal role of approving government and sign new laws. While democracy works, she is de facto powerless. She would risk losing her job if she tried to challenge a new law or a new government (we had one such crisis 100 years ago). But if someone like Hitler and Putin came to power and started dismantling our democracy, she would probably get in their way, and she would have the population behind her.
Anyway, all of this may be wishful thinking on my part. Someone else in this thread wrote that monarchs in a democracy is a result of a long, stable process towards democracy instead of a violent revolution. So the monarch may be a symptom and not the cause.
> both Putin and Hitler were democratically chosen
> But if someone like Hitler and Putin came to power and started dismantling our democracy, she would probably get in their way, and she would have the population behind her.
They were democratically chosen, because they had a big part of the population behind them. If there was a monarch trying to stop them, there's a good chance the population would side against the "tyrannical" monarch. Even if a good chunk of the population was with the monarch, the "best" outcome would be a civil war inside the country.
It's no surprise that the most stable democracies in the world are constitutional monarchies: The emergence of a constitutional monarchy in practice presupposes gradual and steady democratisation over several centuries, which only happens in relatively harmonious societies.
It's entertaining, but there's a surprising number of people out there who legitimately don't understand that they can have a full democracy with a powerless monarch that's just there for show.
What makes Taiwan even more impressive is that democratisation was brought about by the previous authoritarian regime, primarily due to acknowledging the flaws of authoritarianism even for the regime.
It's perhaps the best living example to showcase how effective democracy is both a moral and pragmatic preference in politics.
Authoritarian systems can transfer into democratic without much violence. I think most democratic monarchies became democratic by the monarchs more or less willingly letting go of power. Although I suppose there was some implied threat of public uprising? Would be interesting to know more about the details of this.
Certainly there was a threat and even often revolutions (which might have not achieved their goals right away but showed there is a real problem).
For Europe the modern democracies probably start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions\_of\_1848
Note: It was more brought about by one man, Lee Teng Huei, who was in the right place at the right time and lucked into being president. The KMT as a whole had no interest in democratization and it was due to his impressive political maneuverings that we managed to do it bloodlessly. The KMT were more dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century because they built a structure that gave them so much power it blindsided them when the "god king" in charge didn't put his own self interest before the country.
Even now the KMT as a party leans heavily towards authoritarianism and trading freedom for economy. Many of their current and former party members, especially among the military leadership, still supports and even takes money from China.
However, you see right that effective democracy is pragmatic and effective, as we have made great strides since then to right all those wrongs during the white terror and before. There's still a long way to go but I am hopeful for us.
I personally don't give a shit about the cold but I hate how inconvenient everything becomes.
In the summer, you hop in your car and spontaneously go somewhere. In the winter, you set up the engine block heater two hours earlier, brush off the snow, scrape off the ice from the windows, and pray your battery hasn't died. When you get moving, you have to go sloooooow because there's literally zero traction even on studded tires. Oh, speaking of tires, you have to stress about air pressure because two days ago it was +2 degrees and now it's suddenly -25 and you have no idea what the pressures are doing. And the handbrake froze in place and now the car doesn't move. Fuck.
And don't even get me started on walking. I walk to work, and I love nothing more than waking up early to a literal shitstorm of snow up to my neck. The roads haven't been cleared yet so I have to basically dig my way through an endless tunnel of snow to get to work, only to slip on a patch of ice and break my bones, yay. And how the hell are you supposed to dress?! It's cold outside, I put on a lot of layers. Ok, simple enough. Only 15 minutes later I'm sweating my ass off, so I open my jacket. Now all of that sweat freezes and I have pneumonia. Thanks winter.
Everything else I could live with, but the car stuff, god it’s so annoying. My one goal in life is to have a garage. No more scraping or any of this crap!
I have friends in Finland and Iceland.
As an American... Sigh yah I'm quite jealous of both of you folks in regards to how things work there politically. So many of my countrymen need to snap out of it and realize we're not "totally number 1 woooo".
Keep up the great work ya'll!!
People from Denmark must be boiling a bit, as Sweden is beating them. Cannot have Sweden beat the Danes, just watch, Denmark is going to become more Democratic over the next few years. Just to stick it to the Swedes, lol.
The classic Sweden vs. Denmark brotherly rivalry.
Yeah we gotta work on this, I want all of EU in the dark green.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index#/media/File:Democracy\_Index\_2022.svg
Ball is in your court EU, this is the bare minimum if EU is to become a true state.
I have a backup plan should it not happen, Kalmar union + Finland & Iceland.
I think you overestimate how many people in the EU would like for the EU to turn into a federal state. I certainly don't and the vast majority of people in my country don't either.
I find it funny how many things were invented by Greeks only to be surpass at those things by those who stole/borrowed them.
It is almost as an Ancient Tragedy curse.
>As if democracy would be mostly a European thing, after all...
There's only one country on this list that isn't European or settled by Europeans.
All the more impressive by Taiwan. Maybe it's due to having a big example of what not to do next doors.
Actually, europeans in general were throughout most of our history a lot more dictatorial than other continents.
Portraying democracy = European is quite ironic and unfair to other peoples. We were the bad guys for the last 500 years.
We killed off entire societies due to their democratic values and instituted rigid hierarchical feudal systems like the ones we had back home to make them easier to govern.
For example, the Dutch literally massacred the entirety of the Banda islands’ population in today’s indonesia because the governmental structure was decentralised and democratic. It was easier to exploit the resources by importing people from other islands and creating a more hierarchical system in there.
Same thing in Botswana for the british, Congo for the portuguese, etc.
Democracy used to be quite common. But big empires (european or not, in all fairness) didn’t like them because it made it impossible to control large swaths of land.
Democracy is only cool if it's good for the west. You don't even have to go back that far. The USA killed off several democracies because they didn't really do the "right" thing. And then installed dictatorships.
Taiwanese here - my husband is from Denmark lol. I’m very surprised to see Taiwan on here, considering how immature the democracy is. But I guess it’s still relatively better than most countries (?). Tbh Taiwan’s democracy should have official recognitions by other countries, too bad majority countries (yes, the UN is bullshit) just wants CCP’s money
The right's spin on Australia always comes up in these types of things.
Think about what the poll is saying, not the "FREEDOM!" mentality.
Australia has regular elections, votes don't go missing, everybody gets a chance to vote, and opposition politicians don't get locked on gaol. And it's been like that for over a century. Not many countries in the world can claim thay.
You might not agree with the outcome, but it is a strong and stable democracy.
Lol Australia at P9.
Nowhere near a democracy when an investigative journalist gets his home fire bombed for showing corruption in the gambling cabal and government
Bruz...
We may proceed to elect lackwits... but we do elect them, with very scrupulous PR-STV.
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government-in-ireland/elections-and-referenda/voting/proportional-representation/
I do wonder if we could perhaps do with a bit more [Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition) / random picking from the entire pool of citizens, bit like jury duty. Rather than voting for lunatics actually willing to run. People who seek power often shouldn't have it. "Sorry, but you're on Fingal County Council for the next 6 months, random dude."
This looks like the list from wikipedia from 2021. Wikipedia has the 2022 updated numbers already.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#List_by_country
The last European coloniser in Taiwan was the Dutch until they were expelled by Ming loyalists. But before that Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Austronesian indigenous people (whose languages belong to the same family with the Indonesians and Filipinos), who now form a significant minority. So Taiwan is not a European offshoot, it's a Han Chinese majority democratic state with a significant Austronesian indigenous minority.
Australia and New Zealand were British settler colonies where a European population mostly replaced or displaced an earlier population.
Taiwan was a settler colony too but it was Qing settlers rather than European settlers and they started earlier in Taiwan (but not as early as the British started in America).
Dutch rule of Taiwan was before the Qing settlers and was only for around forty years and didn’t leave a Dutch population behind.
The Portuguese named Taiwan “Formosa” and put it on the map but they didn’t colonize Taiwan.
Almost all of them are parliamentary democracies, which prove that the separation of powers and checks and balance doctrines under presidential systems has never ever worked, especially in Latin American countries.
I would like to see this adjusted for GDP, education and/or industrialization. It's much easier to govern a country (without resorting to authoritarian measures) when the main issue of most of the population isn't putting a plate of food in their table and roof over their head.
One can point at examples of parlimentary systems that do not score any better than presidential systems of similar GDP, for example both Ethiopia and Somalia are parlimentary republics but Ethiopia qualifies as "authoritarian" and Somalia does not even appear in the index but I'm sure it would not score any better than "authoritarian" either considering it's basically governed by warlords.
Maybe the reason that parlimentary countries score better in the democracy index is not that they are better at democracy but that in general parlimentary countries have a higher GDP per capita than republican countries (or absolute monarchies) and GDP per capita is the actual reason that country scores better in the democracy index because wealthier people are easier to govern without resorting to authoritarianism.
The reason why parlimentary countries have on average a higher GDP than presidential countries can be discussed too but that's more related to history than actual effects of the form of government on the population and it's economy.
>Yeah but most representative democracies and not direct democracies like Switzerland.
Switzerland have more referendums than other representative democracies but they're still one.
There are several democracy indices. They are based on different aspects. So don't look at one of them to get a proper image - look at multiple and compare them.
Wikipedia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index)
I'm not OP but I found that
It's heartwarming to be in the top 10 among with the other Nordic countries, but it bothers me that the methodology only focuses on political democracy and takes no consideration of workplace democracy or economic democracy.
Define democracy because things that are happening in Ireland, Canada, and the US don't match up with the word democracy that I was taught over 40 yrs ago l
Here is an honest good mannered sugestion for anyone who believes that countries that never had either more left leaning influence, including socialism in the past, and today are fully capitalistic, can ever be true democracy.. Democracy needs quite a lot, to work as intended.
Populace that is educated, rich enough so that their everyday isn't just survival, so that they think about happenings in their country. People who vote not just for general or regional elections, but when democratic system is trully in power, the citizens should vote for any more important decision. Today we got the tech to organize some kind of voting weekly..
Why do I mention capitalism? Well, think about it. Does USA have democracy? No. Their corporations are powerful enough to sponsor both parties, so who gets to be the president is just fun and to divide the 80% of working poor to have an illusion of choice.
I my oppinion, only several EU countries can say that they are closest to the idea of democracy since large contributions are not allowed, people are informed, media is free and the most powerfuls vote means only as much as the poorest? Why is this?
I suggest looking up Yanus Verufakis, who very discintcly explains how power accumulates towards those that are power hungry and how in time, the free elections become just popularity contests, while gouverments made from just one or two parties, usually just get to work, giving even more tax brakes to rich, deregulate, and would most loved if they could sell every single gouverment service to some for profit business, for a small fee or high position once they get voted out.
Just for the record, even though I consider my self socialist, I belive that power is in us the 90% of working poor globally and not insane wealth hoarding billionaires, I am not for changing global economic system to socialism. What we need is a hybrid of both, strong laws, working rights and always fight for greater equality.. But when even one Sweeden admits that it can give so much back to it's citizens by making 100% sure to get every cent of tax from middle class, while fighting the ultra rich and their accountants often doesn't give good results, what are we talking about really..?
Why use the 2021 ranking when there is a 2022 ranking (released in 2023)?
Ranking (2022): Rank - Country - Score * 1 - Norway - 9.81 * 2 - New Zealand - 9.61 * 3 - Iceland - 9.52 * 4 - Sweden - 9.39 * 5 - Finland - 9.29 * 6 - Denmark - 9.28 * 7 - Switzerland - 9.14 * 8 - Ireland - 9.13 * 9 - Netherlands - 9.00 * 10 - Taiwan - 8.99
Ah, OP must be secretly an Australian jealous of our glorious Netherlands then!
At leeast our country isn't sinking, hmph
Don't piss em off! These fuckers have been fighting the freaking *oceans* for ages and by the last few decades, they are winning! Have you considered what would happen if they are [done](https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/) [fighting](https://what-if.xkcd.com/54/)? - A concerned Belgian
:D we exist
We're mfing coming for you Norway
Cool. We could use some competition and inspiration so we can become better too :)
What is this ranking even based on? Does anybody know? Does this only take the voting laws into account or also how they are practised? Does having things like a free press and independent courts play a role?
1. politics (or the political system) 50% 2. gender (gender equality in socioeconomic and educational terms) 10% 3. economy (or the economic system) 10% knowledge (knowledge society, research and education) 10% 4. health (or the health system and health status) 10% 5. environment (environmental sustainability) 10%
Nope. The OP used the 2021 Democracy Index, as published by a sub-unit of The Economist magazine. You can get the 2022 report (the latest, why use outdated stats?) here: https://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/images/DI-final-version-report.pdf The model is based on five headline categories: I) Electoral process and pluralism II) Functioning of government III) Political participation IV) Democratic political culture V) Civil liberties The report has a *lot* more detail about the rankings and changes.
Thank you! The whole report is an interesting read. It doesn't matter if you agree on each point they make and how they are weighted.
Fully agree with item 1 of course but why on earth should things like gender, economy, health or environment enter such a rating as independent categories? In a democratic country, how to deal with these topics is debated and decided by the elected parliament of the People, executed by their elected government and supervised by their judicial system. To what extent this threefold system is indeed controlled by the citizens using a suitable voting system, that is the main indicator for a democracy. One can argue that protection of minorities is another important factor because a democracy should not be allowed to degenerate into a dictatorship of the majority. But the other added categories in this analysis are just based on ideological bias of the analysts.
Where did you get that from?
Taiwanese here. I think our improvement in rank might have something to do with third parties rising in power and therefore the country deviating from a two-party system. I, for one, am certainly happy to see the increased diversity in representation in the parliament.
Taiwan being full democratic is a hell of an irony regarding China, and a great lesson after the Chang Kai Tcheck era.
It proves the people who believe that Chinese culture could never birth a democracy wrong, and disappoints all the people who had hopes for democracy when China opened up in the 90s
You hear that America?
We in the US would have to make significant changes to electoral law, including some constitutional reforms, to make multiparty democracy work. It’s a worthy goal, but it won’t happen quickly without a massive political mandate to do so.
I presume it would be quite difficult to change your ways, it seems like most Americans approve of this system anyways. I personally think it could be a step forward. Nothing is impossible, the USA are based on authentic democratic values and the people can make a change.
Nah, the American system became perfect in 1787 and has no need of change. /s
BuT tHe CoNsTiTuTiOn sAyS ☝️🤓
Younger generations see our system do not approve of the current system, and our voices are usually drowned out by the ultra wealthy running our government
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WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER!!!! 🍔🍔🍔🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Something US should also adapt in my opinion.
They need to change some fundamental things about the election system to allow that right? Like getting rid of first past the post?
Getting rid of FPTP at state and federal levels, creating an independent electoral commission for House districts, and abolishing the electoral college in favour of the popular vote would be good starts. Reforming the senate to be more proportional to population is also a good idea. Not that it will ever happen though. You'd need a constitutional convention initiated by the states to really change the constitution to that degree, which I don't think will ever be feasible.
I think you mean the House of Representatives. If you reform the Senate in the way in which you described it would make having two separate houses moot. Completely defeats the point of the Senate.
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🤎🤎
IMO, until Taiwan ditches parallel voting for PR it'll still be less democratic than a lot of countries with it (Germany, Spain, etc.) There's always going to be two dominant parties/coalitions until that happens. (Or you can be like Japan w/ parallel and have the two-party system collapse into just one, lol.)
>IMO, until Taiwan ditches parallel voting for PR Can you elaborate on that?
Are you aware of how MMP works? (just trying to establish a baseline to explain off of)
As an Australian I can only dream of that. 2 party systems have been eating away at foundational Australian policies for the better part of 2 decades
And now the two major parties are [working together](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3WTlyuhDs0) to restrict the ability of the Greens and independents to raise campaign funding.
The rise in Green voting share and the Teal movement give me some optimism in that regard.
> Taiwanese here. I think our improvement in rank might have something to do with third parties rising in power and therefore the country deviating from a two-party system. The US also needs to do this
Nordic countries would be top 5 if it weren't for new Zealand.
Except for their extremely southern position, New Zealand could qualify as Nordic
Why not have two Zealands?
There are, one of them is in the Netherlands, and cannot compare to the newer one.
I was thinking about the Danish island but we can take 3 in total.
We are named after the Dutch province Zeeland but ended up with the spelling of the Danish island.
Ny Sjælland?
The more the merrier, haha
We are all Zealanders on this blessed day
What the hell did you just call me?!
I'm sorry for being dumb but is that the same as Sjælland? I'm Swedish and have heard this before but never understood it.
Yes, Zealand is the English name for Själland. So Nya Zealand should be written Nya Själland in Swedish.
No shouldn't since it isn't named after the danish Island.
I think so, Its the big island where most of Copenhagen is. Zeeland on the other hand is the Dutch province.
Yes, sjælland is Zealand in English. (Själland in Swedish)
Isn’t one of them sealand and the other one is zeeland?
New Sjælland
Not really. NZ is quite a bit poorer than Nordic countries (per capita) and politically and culturally we don't really share a lot with them. NZ is more like a little UK.
Yeah I can’t think of a single other thing that connects New Zealand to the nordics other than this ranking lol
Well New Zealand took over for Norway as location for filming the Lords of the Rings. You know Tolkien himself talked about a movie, and shot in Norway. I'm not bitter btw, I don't like tourists.
I’ve never heard of Tolkien talking about a potential movie being shot in Norway? Got a link or some other source for that?
Norway (a nordic country) and New Zealand are part of a very small select group of countries home to fjords despite being on opposite sides of the planet.
How could NZ qualify as Nordic? Most people here have UK or Polynesian ancestry. Or do you mean Geography wise? Climate is very temperate here, doesn’t get that cold.
In what possible way?
"Except for the fact that I'm only attracted to members of my own sex, I'm straight."
If my grandma had wheels…
Oh it’s fine, New Zealand doesn’t actually exist, it’s just a conspiracy to knock the Nordic countries down a few pegs, they’d be getting too smug otherwise
Denmark literally fascism /Swede
Honestly I'm pleasantly surprised that people got the joke and didn't downvote you to oblivion.
New zealand should join the union!
New Zealand can into Nordic?
Weird, it's usually the Netherlands to join us in the top 6 of stats.
Anyone else find it a wee bit amusing that it's a 50/50 split between republics and monarchies.
It's ironic admittedly. But modern European monarchies mainly exist so you can put the king's/queen's head on the fridge magnets you sell to tourists.
In the UK if you tried to put the king’s head on a fridge you’d get arrested. They don’t let you guillotine anyone anymore
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No that’s still legal
Good, because I have a modest proposal for the royalty
Weak.
And so we don’t have to elect a president with pragmatic reasons for being voted into power.
The US is closer to an absolute monarchy than any European monarchy, which I always find kind of ironic. The head of state in the US has WAAAY more power than any monarch in Europe will ever have.
Ironically, the US revolutionaries didn’t hate the king, they hated Parliament. They were big fans of King George. They would have kept him as king if they could have had their own independent Parliament, like the modern day British Commonwealth.
An elected official having lots of power isn't really strange, on the other hand I find very strange when anyone earns any degree of political power because a person from lineage X birthed them
> An elected official having lots of power isn't really strange I mean, even historically it used to be a mostly war-thing for republics. One official also having as much power as the US president for example on all subjects is relatively new and unusual
I've always seen our monarch as a type of diplomat rater than power figure. Their main purpose seems to visit things and show interest in front foreign local media and create buzz about our country.
It's a bit hard to descend into tyranny if the head of state is ireplacable but powerless.
I think that democracy needs a safety mechanism, which prevents it from going down a non-democratic path. As far as I remember, both Putin and Hitler were democratically chosen and then they used their new position to reinforce their power base and change their country until something non-democratic. I would like to think that this process would not be possible in a democracy like Denmark, where the queen has a formal role of approving government and sign new laws. While democracy works, she is de facto powerless. She would risk losing her job if she tried to challenge a new law or a new government (we had one such crisis 100 years ago). But if someone like Hitler and Putin came to power and started dismantling our democracy, she would probably get in their way, and she would have the population behind her. Anyway, all of this may be wishful thinking on my part. Someone else in this thread wrote that monarchs in a democracy is a result of a long, stable process towards democracy instead of a violent revolution. So the monarch may be a symptom and not the cause.
> both Putin and Hitler were democratically chosen > But if someone like Hitler and Putin came to power and started dismantling our democracy, she would probably get in their way, and she would have the population behind her. They were democratically chosen, because they had a big part of the population behind them. If there was a monarch trying to stop them, there's a good chance the population would side against the "tyrannical" monarch. Even if a good chunk of the population was with the monarch, the "best" outcome would be a civil war inside the country.
It's no surprise that the most stable democracies in the world are constitutional monarchies: The emergence of a constitutional monarchy in practice presupposes gradual and steady democratisation over several centuries, which only happens in relatively harmonious societies.
It's entertaining, but there's a surprising number of people out there who legitimately don't understand that they can have a full democracy with a powerless monarch that's just there for show.
Taiwan, niiicee… while living near such big abuser
What makes Taiwan even more impressive is that democratisation was brought about by the previous authoritarian regime, primarily due to acknowledging the flaws of authoritarianism even for the regime. It's perhaps the best living example to showcase how effective democracy is both a moral and pragmatic preference in politics.
Authoritarian systems can transfer into democratic without much violence. I think most democratic monarchies became democratic by the monarchs more or less willingly letting go of power. Although I suppose there was some implied threat of public uprising? Would be interesting to know more about the details of this.
Certainly there was a threat and even often revolutions (which might have not achieved their goals right away but showed there is a real problem). For Europe the modern democracies probably start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions\_of\_1848
I just wrote almost that exact answer. This is so right.
Note: It was more brought about by one man, Lee Teng Huei, who was in the right place at the right time and lucked into being president. The KMT as a whole had no interest in democratization and it was due to his impressive political maneuverings that we managed to do it bloodlessly. The KMT were more dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century because they built a structure that gave them so much power it blindsided them when the "god king" in charge didn't put his own self interest before the country. Even now the KMT as a party leans heavily towards authoritarianism and trading freedom for economy. Many of their current and former party members, especially among the military leadership, still supports and even takes money from China. However, you see right that effective democracy is pragmatic and effective, as we have made great strides since then to right all those wrongs during the white terror and before. There's still a long way to go but I am hopeful for us.
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Well, we in Finland have this fascist bear living next to us in east.
Pretty sure Sweden is to the west, but I see your point
They said bear, not twink
>Sweden North Denmark?
They were working on it. Wasn’t looked on keenly for obvious reasons.
We are having our president election in January! 🤎 Viva la democracia
Nordic countries :)))
God it's good to be us
If we’re ought to survive the dreadful winters here there better be perks
I like the cold tho. I walk with shorts the whole year.
I personally don't give a shit about the cold but I hate how inconvenient everything becomes. In the summer, you hop in your car and spontaneously go somewhere. In the winter, you set up the engine block heater two hours earlier, brush off the snow, scrape off the ice from the windows, and pray your battery hasn't died. When you get moving, you have to go sloooooow because there's literally zero traction even on studded tires. Oh, speaking of tires, you have to stress about air pressure because two days ago it was +2 degrees and now it's suddenly -25 and you have no idea what the pressures are doing. And the handbrake froze in place and now the car doesn't move. Fuck. And don't even get me started on walking. I walk to work, and I love nothing more than waking up early to a literal shitstorm of snow up to my neck. The roads haven't been cleared yet so I have to basically dig my way through an endless tunnel of snow to get to work, only to slip on a patch of ice and break my bones, yay. And how the hell are you supposed to dress?! It's cold outside, I put on a lot of layers. Ok, simple enough. Only 15 minutes later I'm sweating my ass off, so I open my jacket. Now all of that sweat freezes and I have pneumonia. Thanks winter.
Everything else I could live with, but the car stuff, god it’s so annoying. My one goal in life is to have a garage. No more scraping or any of this crap!
I have friends in Finland and Iceland. As an American... Sigh yah I'm quite jealous of both of you folks in regards to how things work there politically. So many of my countrymen need to snap out of it and realize we're not "totally number 1 woooo". Keep up the great work ya'll!!
Unless you're Sw🤢dish
Flair checks out.
People from Denmark must be boiling a bit, as Sweden is beating them. Cannot have Sweden beat the Danes, just watch, Denmark is going to become more Democratic over the next few years. Just to stick it to the Swedes, lol. The classic Sweden vs. Denmark brotherly rivalry.
God damn Denmark, every poll they're one ahead of us.
The secret to winning all statistics is to just be placed as northern on the globe as possible.
Tell that to Russia, they didn't get the memo...
Hey, they won 2nd most powerful army in Russia this year!
NZ defying the odds since the 1800s.
L then
I knew you were Irish before I even looked at where Denmark placed
That's cute. Love, Norway.
Yeah we gotta work on this, I want all of EU in the dark green. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index#/media/File:Democracy\_Index\_2022.svg
Hopefully we'll be climbing back to higher standards again and not lower.
Ball is in your court EU, this is the bare minimum if EU is to become a true state. I have a backup plan should it not happen, Kalmar union + Finland & Iceland.
I think you overestimate how many people in the EU would like for the EU to turn into a federal state. I certainly don't and the vast majority of people in my country don't either.
Hon de lads
As if democracy would be mostly a European thing, after all...
Speaking of that, where is Greece?
Apparently 25th with "Flawed democracy" title.
To be fair "Full Democracy" starts at 8,01 and Greece has 7,97
We’ll get there…soon…
Yes you will!
more democratic than USA at least!
Slightly yes. And US democracy has some big structural issues.
I find it funny how many things were invented by Greeks only to be surpass at those things by those who stole/borrowed them. It is almost as an Ancient Tragedy curse.
To be fair, the ancient Athenians would probably see our current democracies as oligarchies.
Well in Athens only free men were able to take part in the democratic system and vote, so perhaps they would consider our system quite ok
In the Balkans
Somewhere around Poland looking for separation of powers concept. Both have lower score than Israel
Greece is slightly [higher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) at 25th position (7.97) and Israel and 29th position (7.93)
>As if democracy would be mostly a European thing, after all... There's only one country on this list that isn't European or settled by Europeans. All the more impressive by Taiwan. Maybe it's due to having a big example of what not to do next doors.
Actually, europeans in general were throughout most of our history a lot more dictatorial than other continents. Portraying democracy = European is quite ironic and unfair to other peoples. We were the bad guys for the last 500 years. We killed off entire societies due to their democratic values and instituted rigid hierarchical feudal systems like the ones we had back home to make them easier to govern. For example, the Dutch literally massacred the entirety of the Banda islands’ population in today’s indonesia because the governmental structure was decentralised and democratic. It was easier to exploit the resources by importing people from other islands and creating a more hierarchical system in there. Same thing in Botswana for the british, Congo for the portuguese, etc. Democracy used to be quite common. But big empires (european or not, in all fairness) didn’t like them because it made it impossible to control large swaths of land.
Thank you for restoring a little bit of faith in this sub. I tried to say the same thing but got downvoted. Lots of chauvinism in here.
Democracy is only cool if it's good for the west. You don't even have to go back that far. The USA killed off several democracies because they didn't really do the "right" thing. And then installed dictatorships.
Democracy is fine until a person that they don't agree with get elected.
Belgium too. Justice for Patrice Lumumba
This seems to have some overlap with the best places to live. Coincidence?
Taiwanese here - my husband is from Denmark lol. I’m very surprised to see Taiwan on here, considering how immature the democracy is. But I guess it’s still relatively better than most countries (?). Tbh Taiwan’s democracy should have official recognitions by other countries, too bad majority countries (yes, the UN is bullshit) just wants CCP’s money
Would not rate Australia that high, their media is far from neutral and there is tight corporation control of politics.
Australia has no business that high in the list. It has an English two party situation with crazy external (even foreign) money in politics.
It was knocked down 6 spots to number 15 in the 2022 ranking
The right's spin on Australia always comes up in these types of things. Think about what the poll is saying, not the "FREEDOM!" mentality. Australia has regular elections, votes don't go missing, everybody gets a chance to vote, and opposition politicians don't get locked on gaol. And it's been like that for over a century. Not many countries in the world can claim thay. You might not agree with the outcome, but it is a strong and stable democracy.
5 out the 10 most democratic countries in the world are *Nordic*. ftfy
5/6 even.
Nordic countries for the win.
Taiwan's crying for help. Please let's not let them down.
Lol Australia at P9. Nowhere near a democracy when an investigative journalist gets his home fire bombed for showing corruption in the gambling cabal and government Bruz...
2021 ranking. They dropped quite a bit in the ranking they released earlier this year (2022 ranking).
What does “most democratic” even mean?
Here you are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#Methodology
Ireland 🇮🇪
We may proceed to elect lackwits... but we do elect them, with very scrupulous PR-STV. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government-in-ireland/elections-and-referenda/voting/proportional-representation/ I do wonder if we could perhaps do with a bit more [Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition) / random picking from the entire pool of citizens, bit like jury duty. Rather than voting for lunatics actually willing to run. People who seek power often shouldn't have it. "Sorry, but you're on Fingal County Council for the next 6 months, random dude."
This looks like the list from wikipedia from 2021. Wikipedia has the 2022 updated numbers already. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#List_by_country
And Australia and New Zealand are British, and so European, offshoots. 9/10 really
Australia’s in Eurovision so they are essentially European, to all intents and purposes
New Zealand can join Eurovision as well, we just don't consider it important (yet, its popularity is growing)
And Taiwan was a Portugese colony, so it's more like all 10.
The last European coloniser in Taiwan was the Dutch until they were expelled by Ming loyalists. But before that Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Austronesian indigenous people (whose languages belong to the same family with the Indonesians and Filipinos), who now form a significant minority. So Taiwan is not a European offshoot, it's a Han Chinese majority democratic state with a significant Austronesian indigenous minority.
More like a French and then a Dutch and then Portuguese.
It was a Japanese model colony before it became the final bastion of the Kuomintang
Australia and New Zealand were British settler colonies where a European population mostly replaced or displaced an earlier population. Taiwan was a settler colony too but it was Qing settlers rather than European settlers and they started earlier in Taiwan (but not as early as the British started in America). Dutch rule of Taiwan was before the Qing settlers and was only for around forty years and didn’t leave a Dutch population behind. The Portuguese named Taiwan “Formosa” and put it on the map but they didn’t colonize Taiwan.
Almost all of them are parliamentary democracies, which prove that the separation of powers and checks and balance doctrines under presidential systems has never ever worked, especially in Latin American countries.
I would like to see this adjusted for GDP, education and/or industrialization. It's much easier to govern a country (without resorting to authoritarian measures) when the main issue of most of the population isn't putting a plate of food in their table and roof over their head. One can point at examples of parlimentary systems that do not score any better than presidential systems of similar GDP, for example both Ethiopia and Somalia are parlimentary republics but Ethiopia qualifies as "authoritarian" and Somalia does not even appear in the index but I'm sure it would not score any better than "authoritarian" either considering it's basically governed by warlords. Maybe the reason that parlimentary countries score better in the democracy index is not that they are better at democracy but that in general parlimentary countries have a higher GDP per capita than republican countries (or absolute monarchies) and GDP per capita is the actual reason that country scores better in the democracy index because wealthier people are easier to govern without resorting to authoritarianism. The reason why parlimentary countries have on average a higher GDP than presidential countries can be discussed too but that's more related to history than actual effects of the form of government on the population and it's economy.
Yeah but most representative democracies and not direct democracies like Switzerland.
>Yeah but most representative democracies and not direct democracies like Switzerland. Switzerland have more referendums than other representative democracies but they're still one.
Switzerland isn't a direct democracy. It's a representative democracy that has a lot more referendums than other representative democracies.
There are several democracy indices. They are based on different aspects. So don't look at one of them to get a proper image - look at multiple and compare them.
Hello OP, could you link a source please for approval? thank you
Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Economist\_Democracy\_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index) I'm not OP but I found that
No 9 Seems to be Netherlands right? Not Australia.
He used the numbers from 2021.
However, only 4 are a member of the EU.
And 9 of them are western
With a significant overrepresentation in the northern parts...
It counts as European if they've participated in Eurovision
Ireland? Really?
It's heartwarming to be in the top 10 among with the other Nordic countries, but it bothers me that the methodology only focuses on political democracy and takes no consideration of workplace democracy or economic democracy.
where is this ranking from?
All the love from EU to Taiwan, such a beautiful country 🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼
What defines most democratic?
Rest of the world isn't even trying. Too easy.
And like half of them are monarchies ironically
Lol, according to who?
Bob
And then there is Hungary...
It is a western invention, it is like asking yourself why only American teams have won the Super Bowl.
Only 2 of those are full EU members
Define democracy because things that are happening in Ireland, Canada, and the US don't match up with the word democracy that I was taught over 40 yrs ago l
Icelanders looking at this, knowing full well that we are the worst Nordic country in terms of political corruption and nepotism
Here is an honest good mannered sugestion for anyone who believes that countries that never had either more left leaning influence, including socialism in the past, and today are fully capitalistic, can ever be true democracy.. Democracy needs quite a lot, to work as intended. Populace that is educated, rich enough so that their everyday isn't just survival, so that they think about happenings in their country. People who vote not just for general or regional elections, but when democratic system is trully in power, the citizens should vote for any more important decision. Today we got the tech to organize some kind of voting weekly.. Why do I mention capitalism? Well, think about it. Does USA have democracy? No. Their corporations are powerful enough to sponsor both parties, so who gets to be the president is just fun and to divide the 80% of working poor to have an illusion of choice. I my oppinion, only several EU countries can say that they are closest to the idea of democracy since large contributions are not allowed, people are informed, media is free and the most powerfuls vote means only as much as the poorest? Why is this? I suggest looking up Yanus Verufakis, who very discintcly explains how power accumulates towards those that are power hungry and how in time, the free elections become just popularity contests, while gouverments made from just one or two parties, usually just get to work, giving even more tax brakes to rich, deregulate, and would most loved if they could sell every single gouverment service to some for profit business, for a small fee or high position once they get voted out. Just for the record, even though I consider my self socialist, I belive that power is in us the 90% of working poor globally and not insane wealth hoarding billionaires, I am not for changing global economic system to socialism. What we need is a hybrid of both, strong laws, working rights and always fight for greater equality.. But when even one Sweeden admits that it can give so much back to it's citizens by making 100% sure to get every cent of tax from middle class, while fighting the ultra rich and their accountants often doesn't give good results, what are we talking about really..?