The best measure of democracy is done annually by The Economist. Their methodology consists of answering a 60-point questionnaire with scores of 0, 0.5, or 1. They then take the score from each category (out of ten) and calculate the average across all categories, from the fairness of the electoral process to the openness of government. Here Gabe de Roche presents how he graded the U of T Students’ Union to arrive at the Democracy Score of 6.54 out of 10—on the low end of what The Economist would call a “Flawed Democracy.”
Read de Roche’s commentary
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- Move to another section of the questionnaire
- + Electoral Process and Pluralism
- ++ Functioning Government
- +++ Political Participation
- ++++ [You are here] Democratic Political Culture
- +++++ Civil Liberties
- ====== The Final Tally
- 36. Is there a sufficient degree of societal consensus and cohesion to underpin a stable, functioning democracy?
- 1: Yes
- 0.5: Yes, but some serious doubts and risks
- 0: No
- 37. Perceptions of leadership. Proportion of the population that desires a strong leader who bypasses parliament and elections. Proportion of the population that thinks it would be good or fairly good to have a strong leader who does not bother with parliament and elections.
- 1: Low (less than 30 per cent)
- 0.5: Moderate (between 30 and 50 per cent)
- 0: High (more than 50 per cent)
- 38. Perceptions of military rule. Proportion of the population that would prefer military. Proportion of the population that thinks it would be very or fairly good to have army rule.
- 1: Low (less than 10 per cent)
- 0.5: Moderate (between 10 and 30 per cent)
- 0: High (more than 30 per cent)
- 39. Perceptions of rule by experts or technocratic government. Proportion of the population that would prefer rule by experts or technocrats.
- 1: Low (less than 50 per cent)
- 0.5: Moderate (between 50 and 70 per cent)
- 0: High (more than 70 per cent)
- 40. Perception of democracy and public order. Proportion of the population that believes that democracies are not good at maintaining public order.
- 1: Low (more than 70 per cent)
- 0.5: Moderate (between 50 and 70 per cent)
- 0: High (less than 50 per cent)
- 41. Perception of democracy and the economic system. Proportion of the population that believes that democracy benefits economic performance.
- 1: if more than 80 per cent
- 0.5: if 60 to 80 per cent
- 0: if less than 60 per cent
- 42. Degree of popular support for democracy
- 1: High (more than 90 per cent)
- 0.5: Moderate (between 75 and 90 per cent)
- 0: Low (less than 75 per cent)
- 43. There is a strong tradition of the separation of church and state
- 1: Yes
- 0.5: Some residual influence of church on state
- 0: No
SCORE: 7.5/8 = 9.375 out of 10
- Move to another section of the questionnaire
- + Electoral Process and Pluralism
- ++ Functioning Government
- +++ Political Participation
- ++++ [You are here] Democratic Political Culture
- +++++ Civil Liberties
- ====== The Final Tally
