[governance] NY article expresses surprise at US walkout in Dubai

[Paul Lehto]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 5:18 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

>
> > read all about it here:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
>
> So unless someone points out flaws that I have missed, I'll dismiss the
> possibility of the correlation with democracy not being real but an
> artifact caused by invalid methodology in the determination of
> "democracy".
>

The notion of a Democracy INDEX consisting of *weighted averages* is
flawed.  A weighted *average*, by its very nature, allows conditions that
defeat a core definitional requirement for democracy to nevertheless result
in a passing, but degraded, democracy grade. Only if democracy were defined
by such a point system in which high grades in one or more areas could make
up for failing grades in one or more areas would such a weighted average
index not be a flawed assessment.

One sociocultural (but non-legal and non-rights based) definition of
democracy is that it is a "habit of the heart" in that the democratic
spirit exhibits a willingness to work with others cooperatively, a
willingness to speak and to listen, and so forth. This definition *is not
really one of democracy, but of a certain view of the democratic spirit*.
This spirit can survive long after democracy itself is long dead, and can
also presage a resurgence of democracy as a political system as a culture
gears up with democratic values.

A real measure of democracy would have to have core measurements that have
clear cut failing points at which the country as a whole fails to be
democratic.  The index appears to be willing to extend the name of
"democratic" to "flawed democracies" and even "hybrid democracies."  A mule
is a hybrid of a female horse and a male ass (donkey), but is very rarely
called a "hybrid horse." Apparently, the authors of the Democracy Index
would call mules "hybrid horses" since the horse is the animal with the
better reputation, but mules are still not horses.

The Democracy Index basically creates work for a bunch of unnamed experts
when the question of whether a country is democratic or not, even though
contested, is clearly within the grasp of any person wishing to reasonably
inform themselves on and come to their own opinion.  In the end, that's
what democracy's about, not about experts telling us what to think about
countries, like the Democracy Index's experts do.

Paul Lehto, J.D.


> The big question is of course what the causalities are...
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
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