MEASURING DEMOCRACY
by
Vatroslav Vekaric
Both the biggest critics of the "new world order" and the most persistent
ones in their nostalgia for the times of block division during which a
huge part of Europe was living behind the "iron curtain" without elementary
democratic achievements and freedom could hardly deny that there is evident
and significant rise of democracy in the world and that a growing number
of societies - not only in Europe but also in the "third world" regions
- are developing manifold and rich democratic freedoms. It seems that the
world is entering a stage of expanded need for democracy. Totalitarian
regimes and overt dictatorships as can be found, for instance, in North
Korea, Libya, Sudan or Cuba - that in the Cold War period were somewhat
overshadowed by bloc confrontation and the fortress of non-freedom with
its center in the then existing Soviet Union - nowadays are generally seen
as specific international outcasts and "fossil" relics of the past. Certainly,
the historic impulse came from changes in Eastern Europe that were symbolized
by the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the same manner as did the French revolution
more than two centuries ago provoke a wave of democratic development that
had reached its apogee in the American standards of democracy and the contemporary
stabile democracies of Western Europe.
This process is particularly characteristic of the European continent.
There is gradually emerging a new, up to now unknown image of Europe as
a community of nations and states whose individual strategic aims in the
political, economic and military fields - since their values are not opposed
- are more or less converging. Within this changed international system
Europe is establishing its new identity upon the fact that today, with
small exceptions, almost all European countries are devoted to the same
historic and civilizational values: parliamentary democracy, market economy
and the so-called "internationalization of sovereignty", that is responsibility
of states toward their own population that is subordinated to international
control. The highest representatives of most of the European states were
elected in their countries in free elections and among them there are no
essentially opposed interests of an ideological nature. Although among
them, of course, there do continue to remain differences, and even divergence
with regard to certain concrete interests in the military-political and
economic spheres, the European states are becoming aware of their affiliation
to a new Europe, to an entity that is in the first place perceived as a
specific "community of values". Such Europe is getting stronger, it follows
its own way, not in a "convoy" but through steps that are imposed by the
European Union, leaving behind all those who are not capable of following
it.
This preceding introductory remarks should, actually, serve as a basis
for elaborating a few questions that in this context seem to be particularly
topical. When is a society perceived as a free one, when is it partly free,
or not free?. How and upon what criteria to establish such a judgment?
What is the contents of the minimum of civil liberties that, if they effectively
do exist, make a society a free and democratic one? Is there a way to judge
exactly, and not "at a guess", and by using quantitative criteria (of course,
in combination with experts’ views), the state of democracy and freedom
in individual states? The evaluation of the level of democracy and civil
liberties that is based upon means of quantitative analysis is less present
in the contemporary methodology of political sciences and in the science
of international relations. However, it has been very carefully cultivated
in some American academic and non-governmental organizations.
Freedom House, that was founded in 1941 by Eleanor Rooseveltenjoys
in this regard highest authority, and the annual reports of this institution
enjoy the reputation of very objective and methodologically completed documents
that present a comparative analysis of the state of democracy and civil
rights in the all today existing individual countries. In this reports
emphasis is on the state of democracy and political civil liberties and,
especially, on the media. The Fraser Institute
from Vancouver in
Canada has specialized in and advanced very sophisticated methods of measuring
economic liberties in states and the relation between economic and political
liberties, whilst the Washington based Heritage Foundation gives
priority to measuring economic liberties that are connected with business
risks in certain countries from the point of view of justifying support
to development and in order to evaluate credibility of states with regard
to their behavior toward foreign investors.
Let us see how Freedom House has measured the state of democracy
in the world in 1996. The Freedom House report for the last year,
in which apart from such specialists as Charles Gati and Richard Messick
there were also participating Francis Fukuyama and Jeane Kirkpatrick as
consultants, and whose members are such personalities as Zbignyev Brzezinsky
and Samuel Huntington - presents the state of democracy in all the nowadays
existing states - in 187 countries. The document contains also analyses
of the situation in various territories that still do not have the status
of sovereign states, or that are in any sense subject to dispute (for instance,
Cashmere, the Palestinian entity, parts of Cyprus, Eastern Timor, etc.).
The report starts from measuring: a) political rights and b) civil
liberties. The level to which the political rights are implemented
shows the level of achieved democracy and democracy is defined as
a "political system in which the people choose their authoritative leaders
freely from among competing groups and individuals who were not chosen
by the government", and the achieved level in this respect makes
the given society a basically democratic or non-democratic one. The level
to which the civil liberties were realized as "freedoms to develop views,
institutions and personal autonomy apart from the state" makes, on the
other hand, the society a "free" or a "not free" one. The following
elements were chosen as the most relevant indicators of political rights:
the election of the highest state officials through free and fair elections;
the election of members of parliament through free and fair elections;
the existence of election laws that ensure equal opportunities in the electoral
campaign for all participants, fair polling and honest tabulation of ballots;
the existence of effective power in the hands of elected representatives;
the existence of political pluralism within which it is possible to have
a change of government in accordance with election results, namely the
right of citizens to freely establish political parties and join them according
to their own choice;
the existence of a significant opposition electoral body and a realistic
possibility for the opposition to replace the existing government as the
result of elections;
absence of any "domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian
parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies or any other powerful
group" that does decisively influence the free expression of the will of
the citizens;
possibility for the ethnic, religious and other minority groups to enjoy
a reasonable amount of right to self-determination, local self-government
or participation through informal consultation in the decision-making process:
As indicators of civil liberties Freedom House has chosen the existence
or absence of the following:
free media, literature and other forms of cultural expression;
free public discussion and private discussion on any question;
the right to assembly and demonstrate;
freedom of political and the so-called quasi-political organizations (associations
of citizens etc.);
equality of citizens in the court of law, the existence of an independent
judiciary and the controllability of the activity of services in
charge of security of the citizens (the army and the police);
protection against political terror, unjustified arrest, exile and torture
for all citizens regardless whether they support or oppose the ruling group;
free trade unions and peasant associations, and the possibilities for collective
bargaining with employers;
free professional and other private associations;
free entrepreneurial activity and business
free religious institutions and freedom of religion;
of adequate levels of social and individual rights (social security, property
rights, freedom of movement and choice of residence, free choice of marriage
and possibilities of birth control, etc.);
equal opportunities for economic prosperity for all citizens without exploitation
by employers, land-owners or state bureaucracy;
absence of corruption on a larger scale;
It is important to stress that in evaluating the existing state of democracy
and liberties in individual countries Freedom House does not take
into account the possible formal constitutional or legal guarantees, but
is exclusively oriented toward the practical experience with regard to
implementation and enjoying of these above mentioned rights and liberties.
The list of basic indicators for measuring levels of democracy and civil
liberties is more or less corresponding to demands expressed in the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights and the International Pact on Civil and Human
Rights. In other words, these are generally accepted standards for the
behavior of governments with regard to the population and they differentiate
the civil societies from the pre-civil ones.
The quantification of levels of democracy and civil liberties is done
by Freedom House experts in the following way: both categories of
indicators - the state of democracy and the state of civil liberties -
are ranked from 1 to 7, and the countries with an average rating between
1-2,5 are ranked as "free", those with an average mark 3-5,5 as "partly
free", and those with the marks 5,5-7 as "not free" A synthetic mark of
the state of democracy and civil liberties is based upon precise measuring
of all factors that are enumerated as chosen indicators, and is given by
teams of human rights activists , experts and journalists form all countries
in the world.
Another methodology, somewhat different from the mentioned one, is applied
for measuring the freedom of media, and here the following is taken into
account:
Legislation concerning radio and television broadcasting and the press
(in case that the main electronic media are under state control it is necessary
that all components of the political spectrum in a country have an effectively
equal access to those media - marks from 1-10);
The level of political pressure upon the contents of media reports (marks
from 1- 10);
The existence of repressive actions (murders and physical torture of journalists,
censorship, auto-censorship, expulsion of journalists, denial of accreditation,
etc. - marks from 1-20).
Countries which for all four groups of indicators get an integral mark
smaller than 30 are perceived as countries with free media, those with
marks ranging between 31 and 60 as partly free, and those with marks ranging
from 61 to 100 as not free
Let us look upon the results arrived at by Freedom House for
1996: Out of 187 countries in the world, only 76 of them, with 1,1 billion
or 19,5% of the world population are ranked as "free countries". In this
group there are all countries from Western Europe and from the North American
continent, a number of South American countries, 19 former communist countries
and 25 countries from the Asian-Pacific region. 2,3 billion people (41,5%
of the world population) live in 62 "partly free countries", and in 53
"not free countries" live 2,2 billion people (38,9" of the world
population), including China that covers more than half of the population
in this group. The darkest picture of the state of democracy and civil
liberties belongs to 18 countries and they include the already mentioned
China, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and others, and since the previous year
also Nigeria. There is an interesting, though not unexpected, clear correlation
between the level of development and the state of democracy and civil liberties:
countries that were ranked as "free", with less than 20% of the world population
made 81% of the world GNP. It is also indicative that there is a high correlation
between the state of democracy (political rights) and the state of civil
liberties. It is evident that it is impossible to imagine an even only
little developed civil society with a greater gap between those two mentioned
elements. As a rule, societies with underdeveloped civil liberties have
stunted or muffled democratic institutions, and vice versa: states
with stable democracies have more or less also similarly high standards
of civil liberties.
The rating of countries in Central and Eastern Europe is given in the
following table:
Comparative Indicators of the State of Democracy and Civil Liberties
in Countries of Central and Eastern Europe 1995-1996:
(1= highest level of democracy and civil liberty)
| Country |
Political Rights |
Civil Liberties |
Synthetic Assessment |
| Czech Republic |
1
|
2
|
Free |
| Hungary |
1
|
2
|
Free |
| Poland |
1
|
2
|
Free |
| Slovenia |
1
|
2
|
Free |
| Bulgaria |
2
|
2
|
Free |
| Estonia |
2
|
2
|
Free |
| Latvia |
2
|
2
|
Free |
| Lithuania |
1
|
3
|
Free |
| Slovakia |
2
|
3
|
Free |
| Macedonia |
4
|
3
|
Partly Free |
| Romania |
4
|
3
|
Partly Free |
| Russia |
4
|
3
|
Partly Free |
| Albania |
3
|
4
|
Partly Free |
| Ukraine |
3
|
4
|
Partly Free |
| Croatia |
4
|
4
|
Partly Free |
| Moldova |
4
|
4
|
Partly Free |
| Georgia |
4
|
5
|
Partly Free |
| Belarus |
5
|
5
|
Partly Free |
| Azerbaijan |
6
|
6
|
Not Free |
| Bosnia-Herzeg. |
6
|
6
|
Not Free |
| Yugoslavia |
6
|
6
|
Not Free |
(Ranked according: Freedom House, Comparative
Measures of Freedom 1995-1996, Washington, January 1997
Although this table speaks for itself, it must be said that within the
descriptive part of the Freedom House report on Yugoslavia there
is given a handful of negative judgments with regard to the state
of democracy and civil liberties, and as the source of major concern are
mentioned the situation in Kosovo and the limitation of media liberties.
(In this context let us say that as rare exceptions, and "oasis" of free
journalism are mentioned Nasa Borba and Radio B-92). It should
be said that the judgment on democracy in Yugoslavia is not based upon
the events that at the end of 1996 have completely revealed the absence
of essential pluralism, the undemocratic electoral procedure and the degradation
of the judiciary and the media - all of which, had they been included into
the analysis, would most certainly lead to an even worse qualification
of the state of democracy in the country.
Interesting is also the evaluation of Freedom House with regard
to the freedom of media in the world. In accordance with the mentioned
criteria 64 countries fall within the group of those with free media, 65
countries have "partly free" media, and 58 countries are in the group with
not free media. Here, too, Yugoslavia is ranked within the most unpopular
group - group of countries with not free media. Within the
group of Central and East European countries Yugoslavia is at the very
end of the list, together Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Coming back to the statement from the beginning of this text, one should
say that the Freedoms House report confirms that a gradual improvement
of democracy and rising penetration civil liberties in the world has become
a universal process that - particularly in the new democracies in Central
and Eastern Europe - is rapidly strengthening. It takes time to establish
democracy, but after the necessary break with totalitarianism (and with
the mentality that is based upon it) democracy is being strengthened by
its very existence although, however, it cannot escape all the "childhood
diseases" that belong to this stage. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic
are the best examples for this. At the same time, there strengthens the
necessary special culture of democracy that requires tolerance, authentic
psychological acceptance of pluralism as a rule, and of a strong infrastructure
of a civil society. This does not mean that such developments are not facing
serious challenges and uncertainties. As the most outstanding contemporary
phenomena in the world that are today jeopardizing the mentioned general
trend, and that emerge as potential sources of a negative turn backwards,
one could mention: a combination of totalitarian political groups and nationalist
and fascist groups - this is the biggest danger for Central and East Europe;
rise of xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racial intolerance in some countries
with developed democracy - this danger is most evident in Western Europe
(in France, Austria and Germany, for instance); rapid transition to market
economies, without adequate democratization of the political infrastructure
- risks of such a development are biggest in China and some other countries
in Asia; and last but not least, the rise of radical Islam that is mostly
endangering the Arab world, but also big areas in Asia, in Europe and the
Mediterranean.
Even without the Freedom House report it was not hard to conclude
that the general process of strengthening of democracy unfortunately is
bypassing Yugoslavia and that it is very slowly penetrating the Balkans.
The results of the significant effort made by this respectful institution,
an effort that is joining activities of a rising number of academic institutions
and non-governmental organizations that are dealing with promotion of democracy
and civil liberties in the world, are given here in order to show that
- with more or less accuracy and scientific foundation - the state of democracy
can also be measured with credibility.
January 1997