This index is simply the natural evolution of the LIBEX Index. We wanted to find out how were individual countries evolving politically. As such we developed the Country-Liberation Index or CLIBEX Index.
The meaning of the CLIBEX index
CLIBEX has the same interpretation as the LIBEX Index but at a country level. A 100% simply means that all the people registered to vote in a country actually voted. A 0% means the opposite, this is, that of all registered voters in a country not one of them voted. Simple, right?
In a theoretical democratic country the CLIBEX Index should have a value of 100%. In a theoretical Libertarian system (or lack of system to be precise) the value should be 0% simply because there would be no countries. And so the closer we are to 100% the more oppressed we are. The closer we are to 0% the freer we are.
CLIBEX for Parliamentary Elections
We will first investigate the value of the CLIBEX index for Parliamentary Elections. The following table shows the results.
However, the more important question is how fast are countries becoming Libertarian. We sorted countries based on their slope (i.e. percentage of voter turnout per year).
As such we can separate them in three groups:
- Disbelievers (negative slope)
- Indifferent (slope equal to zero)
- Believers (positive slope)
Those groups have the following percentages:
- Disbelievers: 62%
- Indifferent: 11%
- Believers: 27%
Which clearly indicates that there are twice as many disbelieving countries than there are believing ones. Clearly, Parliamentary democracy is losing its appeal.
CLIBEX for Presidential Elections
The results of our calculations can be seen in the table below:
If we perform the same sorting as for the previous table, we obtain the following results:
- Disbelievers: 65%
- Indifferent: 4%
- Believers: 31%
Which is a very interesting result. The amount of disbelievers is about the same for the previous type, however, the number of believers grew to the expense of the indifferent group. What this indicates is that people voting for presidents are more polarized than the ones voting for parliamentarians; in other words, they are more desperate. People believe that parliamentarians can be dismissed but that a "wise person" can fix the problem. They are, of course, grasping at straws.
CLIBEX Commentary
The conclusions of the CLIBEX index are similar to the conclusions of the LIBEX index. It would seem that at a country level people are also becoming disillusioned far faster with the nameless and faceless mass that all Parliaments have than with a single person embodied in the Presidential figure. People distrust Parliaments and Presidents but they are still willing to bet on a single person hoping for a "quick fix".
Another interesting conclusion (which we did not quantify for lack of time and data) is the superficial observation that the newer the country the faster people are becoming disillusioned. The section of the tables with the highest negative slopes (decreasing voting turnouts) are heavily populated with former USSR "republics". It would seem to us that they have learned the "communist" lesson quite well. They had high hopes for democracy but they are rapidly becoming to the understanding that democracy does not work and that in ultimate analysis they are still prisoners and slaves subjected to the whim of their masters. This can be seen in the maps below (the darker the colour the more pronounced the effect). White colour indicates no tendency (as applicable)
CLIBEX Calculation Methodology
This index is calculated at the country level. Elections in every country are segregated in Parliamentary and Presidential and for each election the voter turnout percentage is calculated. Once this is done, for each country and for each type of election a linear regression is calculated for the data. This linear regression is then used to calculate the index at the very last election year. The value of this index is different from the actual voter turnout percentage of that year because it represents the overall trend, which is more stable than individual elections. A second parameter which is extracted from the linear regression calculation is the slope of the model. The slope represents the percentage of increase (positive) or decrease (negative) in voter turnout per year. This gives us a very clear idea in which direction every country is heading.
