IKN

The chart is busy for sure, so if you want more detailed breakdowns and more about how this particular IDD group decide to measure democracy in the region, click here for the English language briefing.

To help you out, the key on the right of the above chart has the countries in order of preference for 2009, so Chile wins and Bolivia comes bottom of the pile.

Bottom line: The biggest takeaway I have from seeing the 2002-2009 figures all in one chart is ‘same as it ever was’ according to this survey. You look at the 2002 chart positions and you look at the 2009 position, you shrug, you say “yeah well, a minor shuffling of feet here and there, but nothing has changed”. This is the obvious detraction from this latest slice of academic bullshit, because anyone with half a brain (and who lives here instead of using the place as their own personal petri dish) knows that on a regionwide scale, things are certainly better than they were ten years ago. If you can’t show the improvement there’s something wrong with your statistical model, not with the countries you’re modelling.