Thursday, May 29, 2008

Accession to the throne of King Peter I

Coup d'Etat from 29 May (11 June N.S.) 1903, brought Karadjordje's grandson, King Peter I Karadjordjevic to the throne, and opened the way to parliamentary democracy in Serbia.Upon taking his oath in the presence of the members of the Parliament, Senators and members of the Government, King Peter I stated: „I want to be the true Constitutional King of Serbia. The Constitution and all of its guarantees are sacred to me, and I shall always respect and protect them to the best of my abilities”. On that occasion he appealed for political and dynastic reconciliation, saying: „I forgive everything, I leave everything to history”. Educated in Europe, this liberal king had translated into Serbian John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty. During his reign Serbia got a democratic constitution that initiated a period of political freedom, which was interrupted by the wars for liberation. The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 ended the Ottoman domination in the region.

The period between 1903 and 1914 is generally considered to be the
golden age of Serbian parliamentarism and politics, economy and culture in general. Social stability of that period is indisputable, as well as major development of the country, in many areas (military, some branches of industry, etc). In addition, Serbia withstood the Pig War with Austro-Hungarian Empire (a customs blockade), that followed the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. That was an introduction into the fateful events of 1914.


Friday, May 23, 2008

INDEX OF DEMOCRACY

The Economist has in a study examined the state of democracy in 167 countries and attempted to quantify this with an Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Democracy which focused on five general categories; free and fair election process, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. EIU classifies the countries into four groups: „full democracies“, „flawed democracies“, „hybrid regimes“ and „authoritarian regimes“. Only 28 countries are considered to be fully democratic.

Serbia belongs to „flawed democracies“ and takes the 55th place in the list.


http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_TABLE_2007_v3.pdf


Full democracies


No.

Country

Index

1

Sweden

9.88

2

Iceland

9.71

3

The Netherlands

9.66

4

Norway

9.55

5

Denmark

9.52

6

Finland

9.25

7

Luxembourg

9.10

8

Australia

9.09

9

Canada

9.07

10

Switzerland

9.02

11/12

Ireland

9.01

11/12

New Zealand

9.01

13

Germany

8.82

14

Austria

8.69

15

Malta

8.39

16

Spain

8.34

17

USA

8.22

18

Czech Republic

8.17

19

Portugal

8.16

20/21

Belgium

8.15

20/21

Japan

8.15

22

Greece

8.13

23

United Kingdom

8.08

24

France

8.07

25/26

Mauritius

8.04

25/26

Costa Rica

8.04

27/28

Slovenia

7.96

27/28

Uruguay

7.96

GDP of European countries

European countries ordered by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, based on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate for 2008


http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2007/02/weodata/index.aspx



Country

In US dollars ($)

1.

Luxembourg

91 897,877

2.

Norway

49 434,105

3.

Ireland

48 954,948

4.

Iceland

42 057,790

5.

Switzerland

41 869,688

6.

Austria

40 048,525

7.

The Netherlands

39 696,777

8.

Finland

39 687,888

9.

Denmark

39 551,479

10.

United Kingdom

38 742,096

11.

Sweden

38 156,601

12.

Belgium

37 471,478

13.

Greece

36 982,712

14.

Germany

34 291,818

15.

France

34 145,899

16.

Italy

33 254,048

17.

Cyprus

32 958,723

18.

Spain

29 983,526

19.

Slovenia

28 010,764

20.

Czech Republic

26 952,543

21.

Portugal

24 630,826

22.

Malta

24 386,533

23.

Estonia

23 605,513

24.

Hungary

22 029,231

25.

Slovakia

21 842,519

26.

Latvia

19 543,618

27.

Lithuania

18 817,053

28.

Poland

17 815,815

29.

Croatia

16 758,452

30.

Romania

11 989,168

31.

Bulgaria

11 904,502

32.

Belarus

11 067,880

33.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

10 714,482

34.

Ukraine

9 308,476

35.

Macedonia

8 788,299

36.

Serbia

7 737,587

37.

Albania

6 649,268

38.

Moldova

3 301,159

No data for:


Andorra



Lichtenstein



Monaco



San Marino



Montenegro