When i think about Democracy various questions rise in my mind like.
- what is Democracy ?
- What are the kinds of democracies?
- Why is it chosen over the other forms of government?
- How do we rank the nations from the best to the worst ?
I may have found the answers for some of these questions which were boggling in my mind and is curious to learn more.
Democracy is a form of government in which the people of a country choose their representatives. Basically, Election is the most commonly used method to choose the ideal being to represent them.
The most popular democracies throughout the world are representative, direct and constitutional .
In representative democracy the citizen choose their representatives from within them. In direct democracy the citizens of a country form a governing body and vote directly on the issues faced by their nation. In constitutional democracy , the powers of the government are defined ,limited and distributed by a superior body called the constitution.
democracy has turned out to become the favourite of the citizens.the main reason for this is because the citizens can elect their leaders, certain human rights have been implemented for their protection, the citizen can actively participate in the political administration and also due to the main reason of equality among the citizens of the country.
I was quite curious to know about which all are the democratic nations and searching for the precise information was clearly a herculean task. I know that i have only scratched the surface but i thought it might become quite informative.
So, here i begin.
The proper functioning of a democratic country is measured by using the democratic index. It is an index computed by the economist intelligence. It measures the state of democracy based on sixty indicator groups in five different categories such as electoral function and pluralism, functioning of the government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties. Each country was given a score between zero and ten in each of the 5 categories which was then averages for an overall score. overall score between 8.01 and 10 are considered to be full democracies, in which there are twenty in the world. there are ten countries with the score of 9.0 or higher and most of them are Scandinavian. While those countries that get a score between 6.01 and 8 .0 are called flawed democracies, the countries which score 4.01 to 6.0 are hybrid regimes and the countries which score between 0.0 to 4.0 are called authoritarian democracies..Full democratic are termed for those nations which rule by the books or those which provide all the elements of democracy in the best manner possible. In short, those countries which are not a big fan of controversies or does not want to gain the attraction of the media are called full democracies. Flawed democracies are the nations which provide the basic necessities of a democratic government to the citizens but there is one problem or the other in them. mostly, these are the nations which are most popular in the media and are a huge fan of controversies such as the USA, INDIA,JAPAN ETC…. hybrid regimes are those nation which follow a system similar to the authoritarian system but are a bit more lenient in nature. for example, the citizens can elect their representatives but cannot get to know what is happening inside their governments. authoritarian democracy are those governments which are controlled by a ruling elite or a group of them. in this type of government not even the basic democratic necessities of the people are being fulfilled. such as RUSSIA, NORTH KOREA ,SYRIA,ETC.. well, even the media does not want a part of them.
Even if several countries in the world proclaim themselves as a Democracy,I don’t feel their functioning to be democratic at all.
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