[Timo]

We're Number 10!

Country comparison (average quality of democracy 1995-2005):
Denmark: 88.3
Finland: 87.7
Belgium: 85.1
Iceland: 83.5
Sweden: 82.9
Norway: 82.1
Canada: 79.4
Netherlands: 79.0
Luxembourg: 75.2
USA: 74.9
Germany: 73.2
New Zealand: 72.1
Slovenia: 69.6
Switzerland: 67.8
Ireland: 67.0
Portugal: 66.7
Spain: 66.6
Australia: 65.5
Hungary: 63.2
Austria: 63.1
Czech Republic: 58.2
Italy: 57.0
Cyprus: 55.5
Malta: 54.2
Japan: 45.8
Great Britain: 44.6
France: 42.8
Poland: 42.0
South Africa: 39.8
Costa Rica: 32.7

Provided by University of Zurich

Diagnoses of a crisis of democracy are as old as democracy itself; they are a common theme in the political discourse of the Western world. However, until now there was no instrument that allowed a systematic measurement of the quality and stability of democracy in highly developed industrialized countries across national borders and over long periods of time. A democracy barometer that has analyzed the development of the most important aspects of the world's thirty foremost democracies since 1990 has now been presented at the University of Zurich.

The barometer uses 100 empirical indicators to measure how well a country complies with the three democratic principles of freedom, equality and control as well as the nine basic functions of democ-racy. The comparison of thirty established democracies between 1995 and 2005 has revealed that Denmark is leading the way, followed by Finland and Belgium. "In the comparison, the lowest quality is exhibited by the democracies in Poland, South Africa and Costa Rica," says Marc Bühlmann from the University of Zurich. While Italy, as might be expected, finds itself towards the bottom end of the scale, it is surprising that Great Britain (26th) and France (27th) are also so far down the ranking. Equally surprising is the fact that Switzerland (14th) is only mediocre and lags behind 11th- placed Germany.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-den ... acies.html