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What are the most democratic countries in Europe? How would we find out? We could look at electoral turnouts. But while elections matter, Demos doesn’t believe that democracy is something that should start and finish at the ballot box.

That’s why we have developed the first Everyday Democracy Index (EDI). The EDI is a tool for assessing the democratic health of European countries across many different dimensions. That includes the formal dimensions of democracy, like procedural rights and election turnout. But it also includes more everyday features of democracy – how important democratic principles and practices are to the cultures of workplaces, to people’s community life, to the way they interact with public services, and even to the way they talk to their friends and family.

There are other democracy indices out there, but whilst they may be good at identifying the differences between, say, Belgium and Burkina Faso, they are less good at revealing the contrast between democratic experiences in Finland and France. Starting with Europe, we hope to begin a new conversation about democracy where they leave off, with countries around the world.

For the first EDI we have collected data on twenty five European countries. Europe is home to some of the world’s oldest democracies as well as some of its youngest. Across many of them the same debates are gathering momentum: Why are people voting less? Why are political party memberships dropping? Why is trust in politics so low? Meanwhile in Brussels, the ‘same old’ debate about European democracy rolls on.

We need to connect these debates, we need to invigorate them and we need a new starting point. This is what the Everyday Democracy Index aims to achieve.

 The framework for the index is made up of six dimensions:

1. Electoral and procedural democracy
2. Activism and civic participation
3. Deliberation and aspirations for democracy
   
4. Public services
5. Workplaces
6. Families

 Project Outlook

We launched the Everyday Democracy Index in January 2008 with speeches from Paul Skidmore and Guardian columnist and Europe expert Professor Timothy Garton Ash.

If you missed the launch you can hear a pod cast with the authors here.

At the same time as we published the pamphlet, we launched a new website: www.everydaydemocracy.com

Here you can see in detail the results of the index and the methodology we used to create it. You can also take it apart and put it back together according to the relative importance you place on each dimension.

You can feed all this information back to us, and your weightings will be used to improve future iterations of the index. Your input is very important to this process and we value your involvement.

The project team

Paul Skidmore, McConnell fellow of public policy at Princeton University and a Demos Associate. Read his blog.

Kirsten Bound, Senior Researcher

And a host of Demos researchers and associates