Friday, December 05, 2008

Freedom House Report | Democracy in the Caucasus

In June Freedom House released its 2008 annual Nations in Transit Report covering January 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007. The Nations in Transit Report covers the democratic performance of the former Soviet Union, the former Soviet satellite states and the former Yugoslavia.

Let’s take a look at how the nations of the South Caucasus have been depicted this year. Georgia has worsened on several of the indexes this year. This is not surprising given the events surrounding November 7, 2007 (the police violently disrupting protestors, the institution of a nine-day state of emergency and the state taking control of one media channel). Note the counter-intuitive grades: 1 represents the best level of democratic performance and 7, the worst.

Georgia Country Report 2008




After two years of slight improvements in performance, Georgia slid backwards in three categories: Electoral Process, Independent Media and National Democratic Governance. Overall Georgia (4.79) fares far worse in the rankings than the Baltic States (Estonia 1.93, Latvia 2.07 and Lithuania 2.25) and the Eastern European States (i.e. Czech Republic 2.14). Georgia is also worse than the former Yugoslavia (i.e. Macedonia 3.86 and Bosnia 4.11).

In comparison to the other non-Baltic, former Soviet countries however, Georgia is only bested in the rankings by Ukraine (overall 4.25). And while Georgia’s ranking for corruption (5.00) is impressively the best among the non-Baltic former Soviet states it still clearly struggles with both local and national democratic governance according to this rating system.

The non-Baltic former Soviet states rankings have deteriorated towards further authoritarianism and curtailment of media freedoms and the South Caucasus nations are no strangers to these trends.

Armenia and Azerbaijan’s rankings remained exactly the same this year as last year with the former receiving an overall 5.21 ranking and the latter a high, 6.0, putting it in the company of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

A separate question remains as to how we can compare these ratings over time. Georgia interestingly has a better overall rating in 1999 than now and the corruption levels after spiking in 2004 have now returned to the level of 1999. Perhaps current assessments are based on more skepticism than in the past?

For more information and the complete reports for each country see Nations in Transit 2008

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fact that the report says that in 1999 the level of corruption was the same as it is in 2008 is just showing how shallow the methodology of data collection is used to produce these kind of summaries.

xcaucasus said...

well, we certainly think it is fraught with risks and weaknesses. But whether the solution is to dismiss the very idea of measuring change altogether is a different question. We try to shed some light on what the indices show, but also on their constraints. We hope this is useful.

Anonymous said...

I can getSword of the New World Vischeaply,
Yesterday i boughtSword of the New World Gold for my brother.
i hope him like it. i will give Sword of the New World money to him
as birthday present. i like the cheap snw vis very much.
I usually buy vis and keep it in my store.

i can get silkroad gold cheaply,
Yesterday i bought sro gold for my brother.
i hope him like it. i will give silkroad online gold to him
as birthday present. i like the cheap silkroad gold very much.
I usually buy the silk road gold and keep it in my store.

Anonymous said...

Once I played flyff, I did not know how to get strong, someone told me that you must have flyff penya. He gave me some flyff money, he said that I could buy flyff penya, but I did not have money, then I played it all my spare time. From then on, I got some flyff gold, if I did not continue to play it, I can sell cheap penya to anyone who want.
I think EtherSaga is my favorite game, I did not know how to play at first, someone told me that you must have EtherSaga Online Gold. That he gave me some EtherSaga Gold, and then he said that I could buy EtherSaga Gold, but I did not have so much money, and then I played it in all my spare time. From then on, I have got a lot of EtherSaga Online money, if I did not continue to play it, you can buy cheap EtherSaga Gold.