Fwd: Re North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: J.M. Porup <jm () porup com>
Date: Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
To: <dave () farber net>


Dave,

Now seems like a good time to recall the 2014 Princeton survey that
concluded the US is no longer a democracy:

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

    Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized
    groups representing business interests have substantial independent
    impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and
    mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
    The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite
    Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories
    of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

for IP, if you wish.

jmp

--
J.M. Porup
www.JMPorup.com


On Tue, Jan 02, 2018 at 03:21:21PM -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Charles Jackson <clj () jacksons net>
> > Date: January 2, 2018 at 2:52:28 PM EST
> > To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> > Subject: Re: [IP] North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
> >
> > North Carolina not a democracy.  Perhaps.  But, EIP not a solid
academic enterprise.  Maybe so.
> > But see that bastion of right-wing analysis Slate for an alternate view:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/the_bogus_claim_that_north_carolina_is_no_longer_a_democracy.html
> > ​The subhead reads:
> > No, North Korea isn’t more democratic than the Tar Heel State.
> >
> > ​See also:
http://andrewgelman.com/2017/09/08/much-backscratching-happy-talk-junk-science-gets-share-reputation-respected-universities/
> > and
> > ​
http://andrewgelman.com/2017/01/02/about-that-bogus-claim-that-north-carolina-is-no-longer-a-democracy/
> > ​Chuck​
> >
> > ​
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Begin forwarded message:
> > >
> > > > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> > > > Date: January 2, 2018 at 11:53:14 AM EST
> > > > To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> > > > Subject: [Dewayne-Net] North Carolina is no longer classified as a
democracy
> > > > Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
> > > >
> > > > North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
> > > > By ANDREW REYNOLDS
> > > > Dec 31 2017
> > > > <http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article122593759.html>
> > > >
> > > > In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to
help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth –
Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among
others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first
comprehensive method for evaluating the quality of elections around the
world. Our system measured 50 moving parts of an election process and
covered everything from the legal framework to the polling day and counting
of ballots.
> > > > In 2012 Elklit and I worked with Pippa Norris of Harvard University,
who used the system as the cornerstone of the Electoral Integrity Project.
Since then the EIP has measured 213 elections in 153 countries and is
widely agreed to be the most accurate method for evaluating how free and
fair and democratic elections are across time and place.
> > > > When we evolved the project I could never imagine that as we enter
2017, my state, North Carolina, would perform so badly on this, and other,
measures that we are no longer considered to be a fully functioning
democracy.
> > > > In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral
integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside
authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra
Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the
middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy
that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much
of the developing world.
> > > > Indeed, North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal
framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank
alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting
district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the
7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state
in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever
analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.
> > > > That North Carolina can no longer call its elections democratic is
shocking enough, but our democratic decline goes beyond what happens at
election time. The most respected measures of democracy — Freedom House,
POLITY and the Varieties of Democracy project — all assess the degree to
which the exercise of power depends on the will of the people: That is,
governance is not arbitrary, it follows established rules and is based on
popular legitimacy.
> > > > The extent to which North Carolina now breaches these principles
means our state government can no longer be classified as a full democracy.
> > > > First, legislative power does not depend on the votes of the people.
One party wins just half the votes but 100 percent of the power. The GOP
has a huge legislative majority giving it absolute veto-proof control with
that tiny advantage in the popular vote. The other party wins just a
handful of votes less and 0 percent of the legislative power. This is above
and beyond the way in which state legislators are detached from democratic
accountability as a result of the rigged district boundaries. They are
beholden to their party bosses, not the voters. Seventy-six of the 170 (45
percent) incumbent state legislators were not even opposed by the other
party in the general election.
> > > > Second, democracies do not limit their citizens’ rights on the basis
of their born identities. However, this is exactly what the North Carolina
legislature did through House Bill 2 (there are an estimated 38,000
transgender Tar Heels), targeted attempts to reduce African-American and
Latino access to the vote and pernicious laws to constrain the ability of
women to act as autonomous citizens.
> > > > [snip]
> > > >
> > > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> > > > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
> > >
> > > Archives  | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Chuck
> >
> > ======================
> > Charles L. Jackson
> >
> > 301 656 8716    desk phone
> > 301 775 1023    mobile
> >
> > PO Box 221
> > Port Tobacco, MD 20677
>
>
>
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