DEVELOPMENT

in relationship to the other states, is generally very good,
especially considering its recent history. In its historical
context, it makes sense to compare Estonia to the
other post-Communist states, and the easiest way to do
this is with Nations in Transit. As already mentioned
above, Estonia stands out for its high assessment (1.93)
in Nations in Transit. A better general assessment for the
2011 results was only merited by Slovenia (1.89). At the
same time, it must be admitted that the differences among
the new EU Member States that are covered by the index,
are relatively small – there are very small differences
between the Czech Republic (2.18), Latvia (2.11), Poland
(2.14), Lithuania (2.29) and Slovakia (2.50). Somewhat
lower assessments in the group of states were earned
by Bulgaria (3.14), Romania (3.43) and Hungary (2.86).
The remaining groups of states are further behind – the
average general assessment for the Balkan countries was
4.09, and 5.99 for the former Soviet republics (except for
the Baltic states).
If we compare Estonia to the other post-Communist
states, based on the other indices, the results are
generally the same – Estonia emerges mostly positively.
The Freedom in the World index shows that Estonia is
located at a slightly higher level than the average for Central
and Eastern Europe, similarly to the Czech Republic,
Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, which were all
given higher assessments for 2011, while the average for
the given region is only a few tenths lower. Most of the
other former Soviet republics and Russia are left out of the
group of free states.
The Polity IV index confirms this interpretation of
the situation of democracy in the given region, although,
unlike Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia,
Estonia does not get the highest assessment, being one
point short. The general trends are still the same – the
post-Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe
have all achieved close to the maximum result, while the
remaining post-Communist states remain far behind.
Therefore, the following can be said, based on the
criteria of the indices under consideration: despite the
small differences, Estonia, like the majority of the onetime
transition states in this region, has reached a level
of democracy that is at least comparable to the level in
Western Europe. At the same time, there is still a lot of
room for development before maximum possible democracy
is achieved, which is alluded to, primarily, by The
Economist’s index.
It is also worth considering a comparison of Estonia
with the high-level democracies in the global context.
Here, it is again sensible to focus on The Economist’s
index, which provides a somewhat more diverse picture
and possibilities for interpretation. Based on this index,
the highest assessment, in 2011, was earned by Norway,
which received a general assessment of 9.80 points. The
category of full democracies is comprised of 25 states,
including many Western European states, but only one
post-Communist state – the Czech Republic (in 16 th place
in the global context). The next state to get a high rating
is Slovenia, which in the democracy ranking is 30 th , followed
in this group by Estonia, in 34 th place. Therefore,
the general trend is the same – among the transition
states, Estonia was one of the most successful. At the
same time, if the remaining comparisons, which were
less sensitive, placed Estonia at the same level as the old
democracies, the potential differences with well-functioning
democracies are still so large that, instead of in the
category of full democracies, Estonia is positioned among
the flawed democracies.
However, when thinking about the assessments
of these indices, one should keep in mind that, from a
scientific perspective, these indices are not all equal in
value. When compiling an index, one of the most important
values is the transparency of the index 7 (Munck and
Verkuilen 2002), which enables the reliability and validity
of the index to be assessed. In this survey, Polity IV, for
which all the information necessary for evaluating its reliability
is freely available, is the only one that conforms
to the requirement of transparency 8 . As far as the other
indices are considered, the corresponding information is
at least partially insufficient. If we leave aside the Polity
IV index, we encounter problems, related to transparency,
with all the other indices, and therefore, their reliability
suffers in the eyes of the evaluator.
In regard to the democracy indices, as with all other
indices, it is worth keeping in mind that these are ways of
interpreting political systems, which are often accompanied
by inescapable problems. The process of compiling indices
is so multifaceted that practically no index fulfils the conditions
established for it (Munck and Verkuilen 2002), and
even if agreement is reached on what democracy should
mean, and how it should be measured, it is not possible
to draw an indisputable line between democracies and
non-democracies (Bogaards 2012). Thus, compiling indices
is always a changing and developing process and, in
summary, it would be sensible to take a look at the most
recent development trends in this field of activity.
One way to eliminate these shortcomings is to
further refine the collection methods for the indices,
or rather for the corresponding data, by using a greater
number of indicators, and thereby, making it possible
to assess the concept of democracy in a more multifaceted
way. One initiative, which is now coming into
use (Coppedge et al. 2011), aims to correct some of the
errors in the existing indices by creating a database
where reliable data, related to the various wide-ranging
concepts of democracy, would be available in nonaggregated
form (i.e. without being aggregated into one
numerical indicator) for most of the world’s states 9 . This
7 Generally, this means that we must know what the criteria are that the index uses to assess the states and, for each assessed event, it must
be known what assessment has been given for each sub-component and why. If the corresponding data is not available, the reliability of the
index suffers considerably, regardless of how “credible” the results are or not.
8 In the case of Polity IV, in addition to the non-aggregated data, the website (see above) also includes a detailed manual for coding, or assessing,
the states and separate reports for each state, which provides a brief overview of the background of the assessment. Therefore, in the case of the
given index, all the interested parties have the opportunity to know exactly why and how the assessment for one or another state was earned.
9 Varieties of Democracy project: https://v-dem.net/
72
Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013