Leaders

5 www.digitaldaya.com after endless recounts, the U.S. Supreme Court made the ultimate decision that Mr. Bush won the election.The votes of millions of Americans were cast aside whether red or blue and the election was decided by nine men and women who sit on the U.S.Supreme Court. Thepoint?Evencountriesgovernedbyconsolidated, democratic institutions are not,in the truest sense, democratic states. In virtually all instances, these democracies are representative democracies with agencies such as parliaments,congresses and other entities of government designed to represent the will of the people. The Fragile Role of Governments In addition to the creation of a tracking index to measure change in how states are governed, Polity also develops what it calls its State Fragility Index. This index is a yardstick of how stable current regimes are – how entrenched the system of government is. States with high fragility scores are more inclined to change than governments of countries with low fragility scores, indicating that governance around the world is in a constant state of flux. The map below, developed by Polity, shows those countries that are most stable in terms of governance. The map indicates those countries that are most and least stable in 2008. Countries with high fragility scores are more susceptible to change, either peaceful change or revolutionary change, but change nonetheless. Aspects of “fragility” include such elements as factionalism, important policy changes that affect broad segments of the population, autocratic “backsliding,”, auto-coups and the collapse of the state government (state failure). A quick review of the map indicates that world governance is in a constant state of evolution. Change, in many parts of the world,is the norm,primarily in poorer countries or countries in transition from autocratic to democratic governments. An excellent example of the changing role of government can be found in Iraq, a country that is moving toward democracy, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens risking their lives to vote and proudly displaying their ink-stained thumbs – a symbol that these citizens voted, in most cases, for the first time in their lives.Even so,the fledging democracy in Iraq, supported by U.S. troops, remains fragile. Democracy is still in the experimental stages in this war-torn region in which tribalism still holds sway, at least at the local level. For this reason, Iraq’s democracy is considered fragile while the democracies throughout Europe and North America are stronger, simply because they’ve been in place longer and are accepted by the populations governed by these representative governments. We want our money back and we’re going to get it. 3:43 PM Jan 15th Barack Obama http://www.twitter.com/ BarackObama Even countries governed by consolidated, democratic institutions are not,in the truest sense,democratic states. These democracies are representative democracies with agencies such as parliaments,congresses and other entities.