POLS209 Tutorial Group Assignment, 1-2pm

Regime Classification Exercise

Justification:

Our group has designed this system so that question one acts as a pre-emptive indicator of a democratic regime. If you are unable to answer yes, you cannot proceed further and will be categorised as undemocratic, as we felt that regular elections were vital to the creation of a democracy. Points on a scale of 0-4 is applied to questions two to six. We used this scale to award more points, as we felt these questions should hold greater weight during the classification process. The remainder of the questions are on a scale of 0-2, although these questions are important indicators of democracy, we felt they were not as empirical as questions two to six. We didn’t focus as much on rights to civil liberties as we felt that these were independent from democracy and should be studied separately. Socio-economic issues were also not discussed as we were attempting to create a system to classify democracies that could later be used in conjunction when investigating whether or not democracies are better for the poor.

Democratic Scale:

1. Are legislative and executive representatives elected through regular elections? (no more than six years apart)?

• if you answer no to this question, do no move on
• if answer yes to this question, move on to further questions

Questions 2-6 rate on a 0-4 scale) (0 does not apply to regime, 2 somewhat applies to regime, 4 fully applies to regime)

2. Do these elected officials have real power? (Meaning that they are not outranked by/controlled by unelected officials, including but not limited to a monarch, the military, police, religious leaders)
3. Are the elections freely contested? Is there is an effective opposition party?
4. Are people’s political choices free from coercion or the influence of powerful groups? (ie. Military, police, militia – can be identified by pre and post election violence or unrest)
5. Are the elections fair? (unfairness can be identified by numerous report of gerrymandering, fraud, or irregularities in ballot outcomes)
6. Is there universal adult suffrage without arbitrary distinctions?

Questions 7-14 on a 0-2 scale (0 does not apply to regime, 1 somewhat applies to regime, 2 fully applies to regime)

2. Is the governing process transparent?
3. Is there a free and independent media?
4. Is the educational system open to everyone and free from political indoctrination?
5. Is the right to free speech and open discussion guaranteed?
6. Is there widespread government corruption? (identified by reports on/cases against high profile politicians)
7. Is there freedom of peaceful association and assembly? (including demonstration)
8. Is there an independent and impartial judiciary?
9. Is there equality under the law?

Source List:

www.transparency.org/research

www.transparency.org/country

Transparency International monitors and conducts research into government corruption, transparency and conduct. Each year, it conducts extensive research to rank countries in terms of their government's corruption. The viewer can use various filters to increase the accuracy of their research.

http://data.worldbank.org/topic

The World Bank data index is really useful when comparing countries and their foreign debt, whether or not they receive foreign aid (and what it's used for) and it also gives the reader a brief description of countries' social development programmes.

http://www.ipu.org/cnl-e/154-free.htm

The Inter-Parliamentary Council has set out an extensive description of what free and fair elections mean. This can be used if further clarification is needed when following our method of classifying dictatorships.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/hd_map/hpi/

http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/

This interactive map focuses exclusively on poverty. It can be used after one has determined whether a country is democratic and used as a reference point when investigating poverty in dictatorships. These pages are mostly useful when comparing two countries.

http://www.cpj.org/

http://www.cpj.org/reports/2012/05/10-most-censored-countries.php

The Committee to Protect Journalists monitors and reports on media censorship and violence against journalists. Their information is updated regularly and their websites gives the viewer access to a lot of research, studies and reports of media censorship. This is a useful tool when deciding whether or not a country has free and independent media.

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTLAWJUSTINST/0,,contentMDK:20756643~menuPK:2036129~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:1974062,00.html

http://issuu.com/transparencyinternational/docs/global_corruption_report_2007_english?e=2496456/2664845

Both the World Bank and Transparency International have published reports examining judicial corruption in countries. They comprehensively examine evidence to determine both the most and the least corrupt judicial systems in the world. These links, particularly the latter, are incredibly useful tools when determining whether the level of corruption within a judicial system, as well as whether or not all people are equal under the law within a certain country.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/AssemblyAssociation/Pages/SRFreedomAssemblyAssociationIndex.aspx

This UN resolution briefly outlines a person's right to freedom to peaceful assembly and association. It can be used to clarify violations of this resolution when using our points system in section 2.

These sources are useful when attempting to answer our classification questions, as well as giving the reader some background knowledge on many countries' socio-economic conditions to give them a reference point during their investigation. Some questions will require independent research, as there are no current reports that incorporates evidence on a global scale (for example, freedom of association or electoral fraud).

Isobel Tocker

Jessica McBurney

Julia Rinker

Kushani Gunawardana

Lauren Swasbrook

Meg Barber

Sebastian Bierma

Teng Zhang

Tim Manktelow

Zoe Moncheur