The data is coming from the world's largest democracy perception study, published by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (a Danish-based non-profit organisation).
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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It's also a comparison of how much people in those countries feel free of criticizing their government then.
To be sure it isn't we should include more countries, first of all, with different kinds of governments. That would be a good start at some kind of more objective discussion based on tangible things.
It isn't, though. You have a hypothesis, so you need to test that hypothesis, not assume your hypothesis existing invalidates the test results. This is statistics 101.
No, I simply have critical thinking that makes me unable to trust some random numbers.
"Critical thinking" doesn't mean test results aren't test results, nor does it mean refusing to engage with Socialist critique on the basis of it being "propaganda." You can certainly think of new tests that might shed new dimensions on the test results, but the test results are the test results, they exist and are valid for existing.
No, that's not how it works. If you test something thatbis not even scientifically measurable over two different samples you aren't testing shit. You are just throwing numbers around that don't correlate to each other.
It provided multiple studies and recorded responses to various questions, and the data is consistent across studies. In what manner is this not "even scientifically measurable?" Is a response not a response?
Genuinely, you've only served as a contrarion.
For the same reason psychology isn't considered strictly scientific.
Elaborate. A measure of responses is a measure of responses, and these can be quantitatively compared.
There is no "coefficient" of freedom of expression to be coupled with that, so that you can start to try a comparison.
As a random example, that coefficient could be derived by the percentage of population that has been arrested for protesting in the last year.
The numbers are measures of physical reality. You can expand the degrees tested, but that doesn't mean the numbers were pulled out of thin air or were made up. There's no such thing as a "coefficient of freedom," you can certainly fudge numbers however you want to by adding or subtracting variables, but the raw data is very much valid data.
Again, this entire time you seem to be playing the contrarion for the sake of being a contrarion, you complain about Socialists and refuse to engage with Socialist theory. What are you trying to gain?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
As you can see here, measuring democracy in this other way paints a pretty different scenario.
Why? Because the perception of democracy isn't physical reality.
Yes, I already told you that you can add or subtract variables, but the underlying metrics are valid nonetheless as the metrics themselves. "Do you approve of your government? Yes, or no?" Is a question that you can ask in many different countries, and collect data on. The numbers are not "invalid" because you disagree with the implications.
As for the Economist, it's measuring freedom for capital to flow, not democracy. The Economist is a bourgeois liberal rag so old and consistent that Lenin described it accurately a century ago as a "journal that speaks for British millionaires." Some things don't change.
Again, what are you hoping to gain, here?
Exactly, you can't trust such a survey, no matter the source.
You can absolutely trust a survey. If I go and ask someone if they want fewer trees, more trees, or the same number, whatever they answer is factually what they answer.
So you can trust the economist's too. Also "wanting more trees" is something you can measure, it is not a feeling. Asking them if there are enough trees in their city and comparing them with another, unrelated sample taken from a different place instead is throwing numbers around and doesn't tell you which city has enough trees.
"Wanting" is by definition a feeling. You can measure responses, the act of answering one way or another is a material process. I can trust that the numbers used by "The Economist" are probably accurate, just like I can look in and they use parameters like "freedom for Capital movement" as an indicator of democracy, ie they define democracy as Capitalism.