List of Developed Democracies, Freedom House and World Bank Data

List of Developed Democracies
and Why it Matters

By Richard Bruce BA, MA, and PhC in Economics

This is a list of countries that are listed as free by Freedom House and high income by World Bank in 2006. High income countries are considered developed by the World Bank. These countries might be considered the First World. There is however a definition of First World discussed in Wikipidia that sets a higher standard of income.

List of the 28 Developed Democracies
with Populations Greater than One Million

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Korea (South)
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Trinidad and Tobango
Taiwan
United Kingdom
United States

Trinidad and Tobango is on this list, but that is because of the recent high price of oil. Trinidad and Tobango have been going from middle income to high income and back for decades.

Why is this Important
Developed Democracies are Politically, Economically, and Internationally Stable

Why is it important which countries are economically developed democracies? developed democracies have three important advantages. Dictators can not take over them, their economies do not suffer serious declines, and they do not fight wars with each other. Because of the political and economic stability, once an economically developed democracy always an econmomically developed democracy. Because they never fight wars with one another a world in which all the countries are developed democracies would be a world at peace. So the fact that a country is a developed democracy is important for the people of that nation, they and their children will live in a free and prosperous nation. It is also important to the rest of the world because it is another step toward a long term world peace.

Let us examine this in a little more detail.

Economic Stability

The richer a democracy becomes the less likely that a dictator will be able to take over. Lets look at the history of relatively rich countries that did become dictatorships. Any comparisons between the per capita income of counties many decades in the past and today is dicey, but I have estimated that Argentina may have had a per capita GDP of about 7,000 dollars in today's prices the last time the generals took power. Germany was considerbly poorer than that at any time before Hitler took over. For 2005 the World Bank defined high income as 10,726 or higher. That is much higher than Argentina was and probably twice as high as Germany was before they last lost their freedom and perhaps higher than any other country that has lost its freedom. So we can safely say that high income democracies are likely to stay democracies, with one big exception.

Oil rich countries do not follow these rules. They are not necessarily democratic or stable.

Economically Stable

I would not be so sure of the political stability if developed democracies were not so economically stable, but they are. Of course, developed democracies can suffer recessions where the income per capita declines a percenage point or two but generally the direction is up, even though about a two percent growth rate is normal for the richer developed democracies in contrast to the much higher growth rates of many Third World nations. Furthermore, some First World nations, Sweden and Finland, have suffered a lost decade of growth but once again no huge declines of the type that might threaten their stability.

Once again oil rich countries are not as stable as countries with broad based exports because the price of oil can rise and fall dramatically. Saudi Arabia is currently a high income country, but it can move from upper middle income to high income and back depending on the price of oil. The same is true of Trinidad and Tobango, which you might note is on the list. It was not on the list in 2005 but I believe it was in some earlier years.

Internationally Stable

It has long been said that the Canadian American border is the longest undefended boarder in the world. One of my high school teachers begged me not to join the foreign service. He warned, "We will have a war with Canada." A nice insult, he was pretty good at that. But it illustrates the point rich First World democracies do not fight wars against one another.

Actually even Third World countries are pretty good at keeping the peace these days. We have come a long way since the Middle Ages when the average country was at war with one of its neighbors in half of all years. On the other hand they did not have nuclear weapons. The search for peace takes on a certain urgency with mushroom clouds haunting our nightmares.

Alternative Definitions of First World

As mentioned above I found out after I wrote the web page that there is a competing definition on Wikipedia for First World. One supported no doubt by people with a lot more clout than I have.

They define First World as countries with incomes above 15 thousand dollars as measured by the World Bank in the year 2000. Since they mention the World Bank I assume they mean 15,000 dollars using the World Bank's Atlas method. Purchasing power parity gives much higher figures for most Third World countries. But as most statistical sources use the purchasing power parity and the World Bank is as far as I know unique in using its Atlas method I assume that means the 15,000 refers to the Atlas method.

Obviously 15,000 dollars in 2000 dollars is a much higher standard than 10,726 dollars in 2005 dollars.

I chose my standard in part to agree with the World Bank's definition of high income, but also because the richest countries non oil rich countries ever to be taken over by dictators were considerably poorer than 10,726.

My analysis is not concerned just with economics. Rather it is concerned with a combination of economics, political science, international relations, and the ecology. How rich would a democracy have to be for us to be reasonably assured that its democracy was permanent and it would never go to war with its fellow First World nations.

Growth of Total Population of the Developed Democracies

The population growth of high income or developed countries is .7 percent a year according to the World Bank. The population growth of the whole world is 1.2 percent. So the First World would be falling behind at something like .5 percent a year if Third World nations were not joining the First world. But the addition of the Czech Republic in 2005 and Hungary in 2007 the population growth rate of the developed democracies is about the same as the Third World and the whole world.

For quite a while the population of the developed democracies has grown at roughly the same rate as the world as a whole, immigration, and the addition of new industrial democracies roughly balancing the faster population growth of the Third World.

With future additions like Poland, Mexico, Russia, China, and eventually India and much of the rest of the Third World the First World will grow much faster than world population as a whole and I expect most countries to be First World countries some time in the second half of this century. I have a web page on the growth of Third World nations to First World status. here.

Near Misses-High Income and Partially Free

Singapore and Kuwait have high incomes but they are partially free according to Freedom House. Natually lovers of freedom will find this disappointing, but lovers of peace might note that we do not have serious military conflicts with countries that are partially free.

In fact it is normally the countries with the lowest scores, 7, that the United States and the West has difficulties with. This group includes Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria. We also have had difficulties with the next two higher levels, China at 6.5 and Iran at 6. The next step higher is 5.5, which is the highest of the not free category, but the First World seems to be on good terms with these countries.

So if one was just considering the issue of peace, and that is a pretty central issue, one could justify including the partially free, and perhaps the top category in not free, 5.5.

Upper Middle Income and Freedom

One might also note that freedom is doing fairly well even among the upper middle income countries. In 2005 among 27 upper middle income countries with populations over a million, ten have a perfect score of one from Freedom House, eighteen are listed as free, five are partially free, four are listed as not free.

Among the 22 countries that did not have a Muslim majority according to Adherents.com, ten have a perfect score, eighteen are free, three are partially free, and one is not free. That one is Russia which has a 5.5 score, a score of 5 is considered partially free. As I mentioned above the developed democracies do not seem to have any really serious problems with countries with a 5.5 score or above. So even the upper middle income countries do quite well on the freedom measure if they are not Muslim.

Before you accuse me of being anti-Muslim let me mention that else where on this web site I discuss the magnificent success of Muslims in avoiding AIDS and other venerial diseases and Muslims were very good at avoiding communism. As I have said elsewhere Islam has helped Muslims avoid some of the worst mistakes of Western Civilization, particularly the sexual revolution and communism.

List of Developed Democracies and Why it Matters