Greece only SEE country listed as "Full Democracy"

Greece is the only Southeast European (SEE) country included in the group of the most democratic nations in the world, according to a new survey released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) this week.


Ranking 22nd among the surveyed 165 countries and two territories, Greece is classified as a "full democracy," along with 27 other nations. The rest of the countries fall into one of other three groups listed in the EIU democracy index -- "flawed democracies," "hybrid regimes" and "authoritarian regimes".

The index is based on the scores the countries are given for 60 indicators across five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.

For each of these categories, the surveyed nations are given scores from 0 to 10. The overall index of democracy is the simple average of the five category indexes. Almost without exception, the SEE countries' best scores are for the electoral process and pluralism and civil liberties categories.

With an overall score of 9.88 and marks of 10.00 in four of the five categories, Sweden is the highest-ranked nation in the table.


Greece's overall score of 8.13 places it behind Belgium and Japan, which share the 20th position and ahead of Britain and France, ranked 23rd and 24th, respectively. Its best marks are for electoral process and pluralism (9.58), and civil liberties (9.41), while its lowest (6.67) is for political participation.

Six other SEE countries -- Bulgaria (49th), Romania (50th), Croatia (51st), Serbia (55th), Montenegro (58th) and FYROM(68th) -- also fall in the "flawed democracies" group.

source:
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2006/11/24/feature-01

Edited by akritas - 24-Nov-2006 at 15:28

Originally posted by bg_turk Your link does not work.

"Ranked 83rd, 87th and 88th, respectively, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey are in the 30-nation "hybrid regimes" group. Their overall scores range from 5.91 points for Albania to 5.78 for BiH and 5.70 for Turkey.  Turkey's lowest mark of 3.75 is for political culture"

This tells much about the problems caused in the region.
EU is far away.




Edited by Brainstorm - 25-Nov-2006 at 01:43

does anyone have a link for the economist index?

Originally posted by akritas Six other SEE countries -- Bulgaria (49th), Romania (50th), Croatia (51st), Serbia (55th), Montenegro (58th) and FYROM(68th) -- also fall in the "flawed democracies" group.

Originally posted by Antioxos Is it possible to give us your sources about these conclusions or is just your personal  opinion.

OK, Greece is a "full democracy", which makes me happy, but that's not news really. I don't think anybody in their right mind (while being objective) would say the opposite. What's more important is (we Greeks) to see where we have problems, which are the flaws in our democracy, which are the main issues that need improvement and then work on them in order to make our democracy better and stronger. This hopefully (and very possibly) will lead to significantly higher quality of life as well.

Originally posted by Anton That is true. In Bulgaria one can hardly find graffities like those that one meets in Aegean Macedonia. One might not know greek but words "Tanatos" and "Voulgaroi" are obvious. They are present in those villages where old bulgarian people are affraid to speak bulgarian language outdoors.

Regarding the graffities that you describe I don't like them either, but there's not much that you can do, realistically. Moreover, I prefer this (i.e. people writing things on walls) than the alternative of people being afraid to write those stuff because the state is going to send them in jail.
Regarding the second issue that you raise, it's very sad if it's true, but as Antioxos said if you make such claims you'd better have some evidence.

Originally posted by Anton

The one in the left means "Liani Bulgarian traitor". It was probably written when Lianis was minister. And no, Liannis is not Bulgarian, he's Greek. I think that says one thing or two.
The second is about Stoidis, but I don't know this person.

Congratulations. I see Greece as the role model country for the Balkan states in terms of devolopment and democracy.

My personal opinion is that the Greek state has reduce  bureaucracy.which afflict all the Greek citizens.

So,let leave the Czechs, the Slovenians and the Western Europeans express their opinion about  Greece's progress in democracy and economical development in this thread.

Why suddenly all Balcan members want to criticize again?