In 2008, Israel's democracy ranked 38th out of 168 in the world by the Economist Democracy Index...well below countries like Uruguay, Korea, Chile and Estonia.
Israel is defined as a "flawed" democracy, but their Civil Liberties ranking puts them deep into the "Authoritarian" group of countries. http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20081021185552/graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf
Israel's Civil Liberties rating is 85th out of 168. One notch ahead of the Palestinian Territories...which of course they control.
Israel's Civil Liberties rank puts them in the same class as:
Azerbaijan - 135th
Kazakhstan - 127th
Rwanda - 121st
Mauritania - 118th
Kyrgyz Republic - 114th
Pakistan - 108th
Russia - 107th
The above countries are classified as "Hybrid" or "Authoritarian" regimes.
The Economist is only interested in whether the conditions of a country are conducive to investment, so I assume the figures are fairly devoid of any personal politics.
In 2007, Israel had an overall ranking of 47th. It looks like they jumped 9 places in their 2008 ranking for some reason. No doubt this ranking gain was prior to the Gaza Massacre of December 2008/January 2009...and the continuing siege.
Here is a comparison of Israel's scores for 2007 and 2008:
2007
Rank Overall Score Elect. Proc. Functioning of Govt. Polit. Partic. Pol. Cult. Civ. Lib.
47 7.28 9.17 6.64 7.78 7.50 5.29
2008
38 7.48 8.75 7.50 8.33 7.50 5.29
Unless something dramatically positive happens in 2009, I expect the scores for Israel to drop into the basement. Of course this expectation does not take into account any lobbying pressure Israel may exert on those doing the next ranking.
Aren't numbers grand?
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i cant believe canada has a 10 with civil liberties. i thought they were the 51st state. i am also surprised to see the usa ahead of britain on the scale.
ReplyDeleteWhat a ridiculous post. Your statement that the Israeli Gaza operation was a "Massacre" says all we need to know about your biases. As for me, I've never seen a "massacre" in which the allegedly responsible party actually called civilians and dropped pamphlets warning them to leave areas from which terrorists were shooting rockets into a sovereign nation. I've never seen a "massacre" in which the allegedly responsible party took so much effort to avoid harming civilians on the other side.
ReplyDeleteIf only the Palestinian terrorists did the same. I assume you cared little and said even less about the firing of over 8,000 rockets by terrorists into Israel at times when children were expected to be about. I assume that to you, there is no massacre there. Only a country's efforts to stop the barbaric firing of missiles at a civilian population could result in a "massacre," right? Even where the terrorists hide within the civilian population to evoke the exact same kind of death and misguided naive reaction you post here, correct?
You think the Palestinian cause and the Gay cause are similar? I hope you are joking, for if you are not, you clearly know little about history.