A failure or success?

What does it mean that one system is more democratic than another? When we have fulfilled all the necessary conditions – like freedom of speech, independent media, functioning judiciary etc – what does it mean to rise the Degree of Democracy? We made a simplified measure.

We defined the Degree of Democracy as the number of democratic decisions per inhabitant yearly. In our municipality Vallentuna almost 20,000 people vote in the local election every fourth year. Further the 41 elected representatives of the municipal council votes an about 100 times per year in various issues. Together it is about 9,000 votes in a year. Since we are 27,000 people in Vallentuna it becomes 0.33 votes per inhabitant yearly.

Demoex can double the Degree of Democracy if we assume that 60 issues per year goes for the Internet voting and 150 people votes online in each case. Then we have further 9,000 votes per year, which means 0.66 votes per inhabitant yearly.

We use our simplified measure of the Degree of Democracy to show if democracy is increasing or decreasing if the necessary conditions remain the same, but it says nothing about the desirable Degree of Democracy. As society looks like, we strive to increase the degree, but we are fully aware that excessive democracy can lead to frustration and inefficiency.

This entry was posted on April 27, 2010 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Demoex, Think-tank. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.