Being a monarchy, like England before democracy, only the elite have real quality of life.... If the middle class held political power perhaps the nation would be like the more developed democracies? I think so.

One would hope so. But again it depends what you mean by "the middle class". In the UK for example (I am told but could be wrong about this) there is a different definition of middle class than in the US or Canada. But if you mean what I believe you mean (or the article means) then, maybe. At least one would hope. Though it's funny how we talk about "the middle class" making better government, and we do not discuss those with less economic means. But an elite governing things is not a good thing.

hacker

Though it's funny how we talk about "the middle class" making better government, and we do not discuss those with less economic means. But an elite governing things is not a good thing

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Well, it might be funny if it weren't exactly true.
Here's the original point I made.

Democracy devolves power to more people and when functioning ensures that government delivers improved quality of life, liberties and well being to a broad portion of the populace

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The other thing to note is that the measuring stick I reference "The social progress index" does measure the various qualities of life across the entire social spectrum. In fact thats an important difference.
The nations ranked highest generally offer even their poorest a decent quality of life and a good opportunity for the young poor to improve their lot.
I think the reason that there is an emphasis on the middle class, is that this is a US centric discussion board, and in the US its now become generally accepted that the standard of living or quality of life for the US middle class has diminished over the last 30 years... At least thats the point republican candidates for President made in Iowa recently. If its accepted on that wing of the political spectrum ...

Exactly what metrics define "social progress"?

Have you ever seen the original (James Caan, 1975, not the shitty remake with Chris Kline) movie Rollerball out of curiousity?

hacker

Exactly what metrics define "social progress"

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data

There are 52 criteria measured and categorized in 5 sub groups under the major classification "Basic Human Needs"
then 4 sub groups under "Foundations of Well Being"
and finally 4 sub groups under "Opportunity".
How each criteria is measured and how they arrive at the weightings can be found in the web site.

And yes I did see Rollerball and read the original novel it came from. (Which described a sport more like NFL football with weapons). One of many in the Dystopian future genre.

Ricky I'm looking at and reading this. What exactly does greenhouse gas emissions have to do with a country's social progress, especially in relation to political factors such as personal freedom, ability to advance, etc.?

And it's interesting that it gives the United States a good score on access to advanced education when we have student loans and countries that we "beat" on that score do not.

I dunno man, I realize you need metrics and data to quantify such information. But some of this seems a little...specious in nature.

Then don't forget Jonathan E's ex-wife trying to tell him that comfort = freedom. And how terribly unperceptive she was in the context of the movie. Yes it was a movie/literature, but in that sense, I believe, quite accurate.

P.S. Ricky: please explain to me how this index (or rather these indices) of social progress can quantify where and how democracy will [or will not] work and why it will [or will not]?

hacker

Ricky I'm looking at and reading this. What exactly does greenhouse gas emissions have to do with a country's social progress, especially in relation to political factors such as personal freedom, ability to advance, etc.?
And it's interesting that it gives the United States a good score on access to advanced education when we have student loans and countries that we "beat" on that score do not.
I dunno man, I realize you need metrics and data to quantify such information. But some of this seems a little...specious in nature

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Good questions ...
Re Greenhouse Gas
Whenever you choose the components of the metrics, you first have to decide how they impact the overall metric. From Definitions it says in Economic Sustainability "Is the country using its resources so they will be available to future generations?"
Most of the world has decided that the world is warming and that man, and specifically man made greenhouse gases are responsible for its warming. The consequences of warming are also understood if the severity and particularly the timing of the consequences are still being examined and debated. (Though the predictions seem to be increasingly settling on the lousy end of the scale)
In general, the idea in the metric is that if you are in a nation that cares about the future generations, there would be policies in place to help reduce the impact being made on warming and those future generations... This index judges that to be developed.
In a less generous society the future generations will be saddled with the ecological debt of the current generation. And this index judges that to be backwards. (The problem with this is that the contribution to the greenhouse gas isn't isolated only in the nation, so ecologically unfreindly nations don't affect just their own populace)

I found the one about US access to higher education interesting too. Except that one also needs to understand that the numbers of universities, and especially top class universities is very high in the US. In many nations there are very few opportunities.
When you consider the top countries, after the US, its Russia. Then Canada, the UK and Australia. I was surprised to find Germany and France so low.... I suspect that although the German education might not cost the participant much financially, there are fewer schools and fewer places in these schools. (Competition to get in would be tougher...)
The other thing to consider is that access is not limited by the high cost in the US if people are willing to incur heavy debt. Which has been the case for a while. On the other hand, once that debt is incurred, ability to begin creating personal wealth is severely limited by the debt. And that's the problem, not lack of access.

Hacker

.S. Ricky: please explain to me how this index (or rather these indices) of social progress can quantify where and how democracy will [or will not] work and why it will [or will not]

If you look at the rankings, you'll find that its almost exclusively modern democracies at the top. The reason for this is that governments in modern democracies are responsive to the needs of more people because these people possess political power. Without their votes, the government loses power. Therefore government policies are written to ensure that the electorate feels fulfilled. (At that's really what the index measures is the overall level of contentment of the whole populace of a nation. It doesn't isolate only one thing but considers 52 factors that effect that level of contentment.)
In authoritarian regimes, which are generally ranked low, only the elite possess power and therefore the needs of the many are not met.

I think the reason the US isn't as high is twofold. (My theory)
The political system is less democratic, mostly because of the Senate.That is one voter in California has much less political weight than one voter in Wyoming.)And because of arcane rules of legislature that often allow individuals to control legislative agendas.
And the uncontrolled funding of politics has meant corporations and a handful of wealthy donors like the Kochs, Bloomberg or Sheldon Addleson have far more power to influence policy and the political discourse than in other democracies.

The political system is less democratic, mostly because of the Senate.That is one voter in California has much less political weight than one voter in Wyoming.)And because of arcane rules of legislature that often allow individuals to control legislative agendas.

Kind of like your own country---Canada is VERY far from "one person, one vote". In fact, it's farther away than the United States (in some ways at least) from being truly "democratic". If you do not believe me---and please, I do not mean to get us off on a tangent---look up the electoral quotients for ridings in each of the ten provinces (I found it on Wikipedia and I was shocked..in Canada?!? I thought to myself....wow). Yes, you're adding 33 new seats in the Commons at the next federal election but that's still not enough to give parity to the ridings across the country and make the Commons truly OPOV, the House of the People. And with your senate practically a non-entity...

Don't forget,the voting rights act, Baker v. Carr (1963) and several other supreme court rulings in the 1960s which forced our state legislatures to all go OPOV (one person one vote). (Our state legislatures should be unicameral, like Nebraska's, because quite frankly at least in my state, with BOTH houses apportioned by population unlike Congress' upper house, the state Senate is a photocopy machine of the House of Delegates!) So in my estimation you're wrong about that. And don't even get me started on some of the rather extraordinary powers the PM of Canada has that I have read about---forgive the vulgarity but your prime minister's authority is president Obama's wet dream, so I have read. But let's not get too far off that one shall we? Just look up on wikipedia the electoral quotients for the ridings in different provinces and you will see my point (hopefully).

So that can't be it. (your system being more "democratic"...I really do not believe that it is. Donations to congressmen--and the presidential candidates as well, not to put too fine a point on it--notwithstanding, you never made a convincing argument that your government is more democratic than that of the U.S....it's just a different path to the same goal, e.g., prevention of despotism and diffusion of power among many different people periodically elected/reviewed via elections, by the people). Do you understand what I am trying to say whether you agree with it or not?

Anyway, Ricky, the bit about the environmental sustainability relating to will democracy take hold or not is totally irrelevant and I'm sorry, I don't mean disrespect, but I had a good laugh at the explanation for that one. Buddy, that's QUITE a long shot. Explain to me how Kuwait has become more democratic by limiting fossil fuel emissions.....because I guarantee you with gasoline a nickel a gallon (if that) they probably haven't. Yet, they have made greater steps toward democracy than a lot of the other arab countries (certainly a lot more than Syria, Egypt, etc....or at least their steps have "held".)

PS, if you don't feel like looking it up yourself I have the electoral quotients for the provinces, proving that your House of Commons is anything but "democratic" in the one OPOV sense of the word. I know that it is actually a little more complicated than I am making it out to be and I am oversimplifying somewhat. Nonetheless, it does not detract from my point. The antidemocratic features of the American system would be more along the lines of the state legislatures having the authority to redistrict (gerrymandering). But that, and corporate donations, dont make it "more democratic" because quite frankly, it has a few flaws of its own as I alluded to above.

The national quotient SHOULD be, it says: 107,220, which is actually more than the UK by some thousands (sorry I cannot get exact figures). But then again the House of Commons in the UK is 650 members, so that has to be taken into account. And of course there are the "extra" seats since the electoral quotient is arrived at based on 279 of the 308 seats in the Commons, and each of the three territories gets one MP....and you're adding 33 seats in the next election but that still won't fix the over representation of the smaller provinces.......OK, you live there, so you get the idea right?

From highest to lowest (number of MPs in parenthesis):

Ontario = 114,720 (106)
Quebec = 100,615 (75)
B.C. = 114,264 (36)
Alberta = 117,513 (28)
Manitoba = 82,029 (14)
Sask. = 69,154 (14)
N.S. = 83,042 (11)
N.B. = 73,000 (10)
Nf & Lab. = 72,209 (7)
P.E.I. = 33,963 (4)

Again, there are factors I didn't include, but if I have read correctly, the increase in seats in the Commons won't make the Canadian federal government "democratic" enough to really brag about it being actually democratic (like OPOV sort of democratic). Do you see my point?

Anywho, I still do not see the correlation of some of these factors.

However, I will admit, that in order to have a "democratic" society, there has to be a dialogue between the rulers and the ruled (if you'll forgive me for putting it that way), and in order for that dialogue to be there, there has to be a population (ruled) consisting of people well fed enough, well educated enough (etc.) to "talk back". I understand that. That's why the Marshall Plan was put into effect by the United States. Most of western Europe (the countries that accepted the plan's money, aid, etc.) was bombed into the ground and starving; and not just Germany. For a few billion dollars, the United States government stopped communism dead in its tracks in western Europe. I understand the concept of something like that.

But, though I am not a statistician, and I changed my major a few years before I dropped out (i was going part-time mind you) of college, from poli sci to something else, I still took enough courses to grasp that a website like this does have its own political agenda. There's lots of nifty ways you can present statistics, even including totally irrelevant ones (like fossil fuel emissions). Good defense of that point (or attempt to defend it) but I still do not believe it has anything to do with the price of tea in China (or the amount of fossil fuel emissions in China).

hacker

.S. Ricky: please explain to me how this index (or rather these indices) of social progress can quantify where and how democracy will [or will not] work and why it will [or will not

I think you are confused and my answer didn't help.

This index does not explain WHEN or HOW democracy will take hold.
What it explains is where a country has delivered social progress to its populace both in terms of breadth of delivery and quality of delivery.

The correlation is that the higher the countries are higher in the index happen to be democracies.
And the reason is that democracies force governments to be most responsive to the needs of the broadest spectrum of society because each voter holds power.

hacker

Kind of like your own country---Canada is VERY far from "one person, one vote"

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I don't know why this is competition. But since you mentioned it...
In any system with directly elected representatives from districts there is the problem of unequal representation. (Proportional representation eliminates this inequality.)
We have a lot of geography in Canada and the rural reasons do tend to have less populous ridings. Including those in our far north territories which are sparesely populated. But then there are not many of them as 83% of Canadians live in cities with 100,000+ population So the vast majority of ridings fall within reasonable parameters.
On the other hand 38,802,000 California and have 2 Senators. Sames as 584,000 Wyomingans.
The nature of equal representation to the senate is a much greater deviation from democratic representation than lack of riding parity. Especially because in the US system Senators possess much more power than the individual member of a parliament. (Bugetary powers for instance. And legislative rules that allow individual senators to hold up legislation).

Hacker

And don't even get me started on some of the rather extraordinary powers the PM of Canada has that I have read about-

Perhaps from me. A Canadian PM with a majority has more unchecked power than many nations.
On the plus side, shit do get done. Well, for 4 or 5 years. And at least one gets a sense of whether policies work, or an agenda works...
But, said PM still has to go to the polls every 4 to 5 years, and as long as the electoral commission is wholly independent of the political process, faces fair election. Electoral spending restrictions, and campaign contribution restrictions also leven the power of money in elections. Only so much is allowed. And that keeps the government responsive.
My theory is that Money and primaries make the US government less responsive. I.E. 85% of Americans want background checks for all gun purchases. But that law can't get passed can it?
http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number ... purchases/


hacker

Anyway, Ricky, the bit about the environmental sustainability relating to will democracy take hold or not is totally irrelevant

Again. It doesn't have anything to do with whether democracy will take hold.
What the overall index measures is responsiveness to the needs of each nations populace. And the specific index metric on greenhouse gases, assumes that a more responsive, socially progressed government will meet the need of its future populations as well. A less responsive government won't care about the future populations problems with a warming climate.
And that appears to be truer of democratic governed countries than authoritarian countries. (Although not universally true of either)

Actually Ricky I did not intend for it to sound like "competition", so if it came off that way I apologize. My point was that Canada, known for being more "liberal" than the US, or 'progressive" (at least among American progressives) has antidemocratic features to its constitution just as ours does. It's just that some of what I read kind of...shocked me (like the PM having the authority to DQ a candidate for MP...is that really true?)

Actually, all good democracies have some anti-democratic features to their constitutions (whether written, both of us, or unwritten, as in the UK) because power seems to follow the rules of power, and even popular power (surprising as it sounds) needs to have checks on it, even in democratic societies/governments. I'll explain more of how that point fits in in a bit (see below).

democracies force governments

Force being the operative word, yes. We must all force our governments to do what we need it to do or else they won't. (not saying you did not say that but I mention it just the same...) Even the most well-meaning, most "democratic" leaders will show inertia at exactly the worst time for it, unless the people force them to do otherwise. (Newton's....whichever....Law of motion...or something...physics was a long time ago.)

Yeah I did get off on a bit of a tangent and a stat-orgy there and, re-reading it, it did come off the wrong way (in fact, a little jingoistic, which definitely wasn't my object either! It wasn't meant to be a Canada vs. US kneejerk reaction kind of bullsh** thingy, sorry.) Again, my apologies.

I'll explain myself better---precisely what I mean---in a bit but i have some stuff to take care of for now and need to be afk for a bit....peace out [for now].

hacker

like the PM having the authority to DQ a candidate for MP...is that really true

Not as PM.
As party leader. and that rule is enforced differently for each party... and in fact for different party leaders of the same party.

I do think you centred on the controversial part of the social progress index. How they establish the criteria.... and weight them ...
Some, when you get down to the source of the data they compare, may seem a little flimsy.

Some, when you get down to the source of the data they compare, may seem a little flimsy.

OK well that is the best way of possibly putting it I think and my chief objection to these indices being used as any kind of determining factors in why democracy has caught on/is catching on in certain situations and not in others. It still doesn't really seem to explain that well enough. If anything it seems to muddy the waters quite a bit.

I think that's the best way I can explain it. It's useful in some cases. But not in predicting will this or that democracy survive. (Maybe in some cases you can tell but likely in the most obvious ones...which makes most of the data redundant in those cases).

It seems that despite insurgencies, Iraq is working better than people expected, especially now that Maliki and his government have been fired. If Iraq survives the ISIS insurgency, my own prediction is that democracy, or the potential for it, will be a little more...survivable. If I lived through the generation of Hitler, and saw first-hand where non-democratic governments lead, I'd be pretty hesitant to embrace any leader who wasn't talking democratic.

Or not.

Because I have to remind myself, that the Iraqis had been experiencing authoritarian or totalitarian governments since the first city-states popped up along the Tigris and Euphrates. We must remember that we are born in bondage to our own history.

Ever heard the one about the "hydraulic society"?

hacker

OK well that is the best way of possibly putting it I think and my chief objection to these indices being used as any kind of determining factors in why democracy has caught on/is catching on in certain situations and not in others

What it tells you is why democracy is desired by populations. Because it delivers government that meets the needs of the populace. And the on thing about the indices, is that the source of information on whether each meets the needs is unbiased. When its only an annual poll and not independent data - that's when i call it flimsy. And that's not the case for all that many of the 53 factors.

hacker

I think that's the best way I can explain it. It's useful in some cases. But not in predicting will this or that democracy survive

If a system of government is delivering on this index, it is not in any way susceptible to fail and change. Go down the list and find for me the first nation and second nations which you feel are susceptible to failure... Way the list I'll bet.


hacker

If Iraq survives the ISIS insurgency, my own prediction is that democracy, or the potential for it, will be a little more...survivable

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The nation state of Iraq will not survive in its present geographic form. It will break into three nations more than likely. And nothing will be resolved until the local players have decided to seek a resolution. Unfortunately three of them are ISIS, Al Queda and Assad, The first two are a long way from wearying of war, and the third may feel he cannot compromise very much or he and his Alawite sect will be wiped out.

Hacker when I look at the overall ranking the highest non-democratic nation is the United Arab Emirates, followed by Kuwait.Belarus and Saudi Arabia. (Belarus is ostensibly a democracy but in reality there isn't much resembling liberal democracy in its governance.

http://www.socialprogressimperative.org ... ,dim2,dim3

The first nation I think might be ripe for revolution and collapse is Belarus... They rank 65th. And ahead of them are almost all democracies. Below them, not.

Belarus was going to go into a union with the Russian Federation I think, but its dictator soon realized he would have to take second fiddle to Moscow (then under Boris Yeltsin if I am not mistaken). The strongman [in Minsk] is apparently even "stronger", to put it politely, than his counterpart [in Moscow].

I'm a little skeptical of your prediction. The index can say what it likes, but the Russian people (and their "White Russian" counterparts, hence the name) are very pragmatic, and the 360 degree turn from 1992 to present is evidence that they prefer order over chaos, even if the order is harsh rule. There's an old African-American spiritual quoted by Martin Luther King jr: "Been down so long, down don't bother me no more." I'm afraid that's why it is usually difficult to turn a dictatorship into a democracy, especially if its people are used to something else.

I'm curious what Portugal's "numbers" would have been in 1974, just before the "Carnation Revolution". One year after the coup that removed Caetano's "Estado Novo" regime, they held free elections and haven't looked back since.

A similar popular uprising (the 1974 coup involved a popular uprising the ground Caetano's government to a halt as well) in 2011 in Egypt has been less successful. We hear less about Tunisia, but they seem to be doing better, at least they have not had a second coup like Egypt has (that I am aware of but I could be wrong). Tunisia's dictator took 2nd place only to Mubarak in longevity of rule. And Col. Ghaddafi outlived them all.

Maybe it's true that if you cannot have a stable dictatorship, first, you cannot have a stable democracy? Because in countries that shuffle dictators like a deck of cards do not end up democracies for very long, either.

One reason could be the contention to the Egyptian system caused by religious politics. I don't have the story at hand, but BBC reported during the caretaker regime of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (chaired by Field Marshall Tantawi from Feb 2011 to June 2012) that some Egyptian liberals wanted a continuation of military rule as opposed to handing over power to an elected president.