The quality of democracy

[shireen]

While browsing press releases at Eurekalert, I found this story:

Swiss democracy unexceptional compared to other countries
http://www.mediadesk.uzh.ch/articles/2011/schweizer-demokratie_en.html

Some Swiss and German social science researchers have developed a "barometer" to score the quality of democracy in a country based on ...inequality indicators: the protection of personal freedom from infringements by third parties, especially the state; the rule of law; an active citizenship; transparency; participation; representation; political competition; a system of checks and balances; and the ability to implement democratic decisions.

So ... you want to know where the US ranks?

Country comparison (average quality of democracy 1995-2005)

Country Quality of democracy
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

We're number 10!

I was surprised to see Australia and Great Britain ranked so low.

[DCKit]

1. Adding "Election Fraud" to that list would really skew the results.

It would also partially answer your question.