• ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
    27·
    2 years ago

    Still ruled by a constitutional monarchy, a system of government that fell out of practice over 100 years ago with the collapse of the European empires in WW1…

    “Most politically free”

    Ah yes, Brits sure loveeeeee voting for the royal family

  • ButtigiegMineralMap@lemmygrad.ml
    20·
    2 years ago

    Political Rights =1? Wtf? The people are actually represented by the government there. even if you’re not focusing on that, they literally have elections.

  • pancake
    12·
    2 years ago

    I need to have a look at that methodology, gimme a minute…

    Edit: done.

    Biases in the methodology:

    1. It uses elections and derived mechanisms as the only measure of democracy, there is no mention of referendums, etc.
    2. The notion of “independent” or “private” organisms is heavily used, and identified with an increased freedom. This fails to account for a possible lack of private sector, or manipulation introduced by entities outside the government.
    3. A large portion of the scores are computed from characteristics of the country that are more indicative of the economy and its workings, and could be targeting specific economic systems rather than trying to assess personal freedom.

    Biases in the report:

    1. The report does not seem to use the full point scale for each metric, for those that are not described as absolute. E.g. “Decree Law 6 of 2020 allows individuals to request data from the national statistics office; in practice, however, officials can decline such requests” is given exactly zero points regarding “Does the government operate with openness and transparency?”.
    2. The report dismisses gender and race diversity in politics as nonexistent because there is no political freedom anyway, which is what the scale should seek to assess. This involves possible confirmation bias. The description fails to explain this.
    3. A few points use anecdotal events rather than government policies or general statistics as a guideline to their conclusion.
    4. “Do laws, policies, and practices guarantee equal treatment of various segments of the population?” does not use any law, policy, or general practice to support its given score. In fact, those that it mentions seem to give the exact opposite impression.
    5. “Do individuals enjoy freedom of movement, including the ability to change their place of residence, employment, or education?” only makes mention of international travel, and scores accordingly.