[techdmn]

As a U.S. citizen, I tend to think of our system of government as only loosely democratic. There are many, many dials and knobs that prevent voters from having too much impact on policy. The Electoral college means losers of the popular vote have been president several times. The Senate is quite unrepresentative, Wyoming (pop. 587k) and California (pop. 39,431k) have the same number of votes. The House is gerrymandered quite heavily, the two-party system has an immense amount of control over which candidates (and policies) are viable, and our campaign finance system ensures both parties pander to donors.

[throw0101c]

> As a U.S. citizen, I tend to think of our system of government as only loosely democratic.

One metric:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

[FirmwareBurner]

Honest question: Why should I trust an index on democracy made by "The Economist Group", a London based private entity owned by the Agnelli Family, Rothschild, Cadbury and Schroder, groups with a history of union busting and other anti labor, anti democratic actions?

[hilbert42]

You don't have to and shouldn't—not without further evidence. Nevertheless, that group has taken the effort and it seems considerable work went into preparing it—that the analysis is done yearly showing trends over time, etc.

The fact that the figures are on the table so to speak they can now be tested by other researchers.

I'd not seen this analysis before and found it fascinating (I spent an inordinate amount of time studying the figures).

[throw0101c]

> Why should I trust […]

Why should you trust anything? "Do your own research."

From §See also:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy-Dictatorship_Index

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Ranking

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallagher_index

* Maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index