Each country is different from one another, but some countries are more different than others. I try to measure exactly which country is the most similar to other European countries. I have done this by ranking all countries in Europe, according to how they score in certain indicators measuring the way of life. The indicators I chosen are per capita income, social inequality, and democratic quality.
I have taken the avarage score of these indicators across all the countries and calculated each country’s distance to these mean values. I have weighted all the indicators equally, by dividing the country distances with the standard deviation of each indicator. This is what statisticians call z-scores, a fancy name for standardized variables. I then added up each country’s z-score on every variable, to get a final rank of all countries in Europe, according to how similar they are to the European mean.
Cyprus, Croatia and Poland are the most normal European countries. They come the closest to the avarage European levels of per capita income, social inequality, and democratic quality. Azerbaijan, Turkey and Luxembourg are the most unusual European countries, but for totally different reasons. Azerbaijan and Turkey are much poorer and less democratic than the rest of Europe. Luxembourg on the other hand, have exceptionally high and unequally distributed levels of income.
**SOURCES**
Democracy score is based on the Liberal Democracy Index from “Varieties of Democracy Institute”: [https://www.v-dem.net/data_analysis/VariableGraph/](https://www.v-dem.net/data_analysis/VariableGraph/)
Yeah but more like which people we love which we don’t
what is it mean by ‘most normal’?
So how much democracy points equal a social inequality point in the formula ? Since income per capita is in currency unit, can I plot the €€€ value of a democracy point ? How far is “somewhat close” ?
My God…..
“This is the ideal European country. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.”
:/
Is your standard so low? Now, I’m happy that we’re light blue, but, but…..
Co kurwa serio ?
[deleted]
Icelanders are essentially Norwegian-Irish hybrids, so it was likely they would have been also far from normal.
Poland is the most normal? I understand what you did here, but, it doesn’t work like that, and is very misinformative.
So red can mean either good or bad while blue is something inbetween?
Croatia is so normal everyone is leavin
What even is this? If Poland is the European of European countries and the Netherlands is somewhat far from European, what is the end game here?
Well, I guess I am happy we are with Finland on this one.
This week’s dumbest, most stupid and ridiculous post.
…and it’s only Monday.
Croatia & Poland – very close?
lmao – that’s a good one!
Damn, wording on this map is something else. Easy to be confused.
So UK is better than Germany, France on average?
It’s funny how it turned out to be a great experiment, showing how many people on this sub can’t read or interpret a simple graphic/map or anything beyond a headline – and what their sympathies and antipathies are. What a surprise, lol.
I was so confused
So many people confused because it is not another standard Europe map
It’s funny that in Croatia some old people still have Ante Pavelic ustasha picture on their wall, I guess European values
25 comments
**INTERPRETATION**
Each country is different from one another, but some countries are more different than others. I try to measure exactly which country is the most similar to other European countries. I have done this by ranking all countries in Europe, according to how they score in certain indicators measuring the way of life. The indicators I chosen are per capita income, social inequality, and democratic quality.
I have taken the avarage score of these indicators across all the countries and calculated each country’s distance to these mean values. I have weighted all the indicators equally, by dividing the country distances with the standard deviation of each indicator. This is what statisticians call z-scores, a fancy name for standardized variables. I then added up each country’s z-score on every variable, to get a final rank of all countries in Europe, according to how similar they are to the European mean.
Cyprus, Croatia and Poland are the most normal European countries. They come the closest to the avarage European levels of per capita income, social inequality, and democratic quality. Azerbaijan, Turkey and Luxembourg are the most unusual European countries, but for totally different reasons. Azerbaijan and Turkey are much poorer and less democratic than the rest of Europe. Luxembourg on the other hand, have exceptionally high and unequally distributed levels of income.
**SOURCES**
Democracy score is based on the Liberal Democracy Index from “Varieties of Democracy Institute”: [https://www.v-dem.net/data_analysis/VariableGraph/](https://www.v-dem.net/data_analysis/VariableGraph/)
Equality score is the (reversed) Gini Index after tax from “Our World in Data”: [https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality](https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality)
Per capita income score is the GDP per capita from “The World Bank”: [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?view=chart](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?view=chart)
**TOTAL RANKING**
[**https://imgur.com/a/uY1ThYG**](https://imgur.com/a/uY1ThYG)
Yeah but more like which people we love which we don’t
what is it mean by ‘most normal’?
So how much democracy points equal a social inequality point in the formula ? Since income per capita is in currency unit, can I plot the €€€ value of a democracy point ? How far is “somewhat close” ?
My God…..
“This is the ideal European country. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.”
:/
Is your standard so low? Now, I’m happy that we’re light blue, but, but…..
Co kurwa serio ?
[deleted]
Icelanders are essentially Norwegian-Irish hybrids, so it was likely they would have been also far from normal.
Poland is the most normal? I understand what you did here, but, it doesn’t work like that, and is very misinformative.
So red can mean either good or bad while blue is something inbetween?
Croatia is so normal everyone is leavin
What even is this? If Poland is the European of European countries and the Netherlands is somewhat far from European, what is the end game here?
Well, I guess I am happy we are with Finland on this one.
This week’s dumbest, most stupid and ridiculous post.
…and it’s only Monday.
Croatia & Poland – very close?
lmao – that’s a good one!
Damn, wording on this map is something else. Easy to be confused.
So UK is better than Germany, France on average?
It’s funny how it turned out to be a great experiment, showing how many people on this sub can’t read or interpret a simple graphic/map or anything beyond a headline – and what their sympathies and antipathies are. What a surprise, lol.
I was so confused
So many people confused because it is not another standard Europe map
It’s funny that in Croatia some old people still have Ante Pavelic ustasha picture on their wall, I guess European values
ITT: poor statistics comprehension
We’re the stock art of European countries
What a ridiculous premise.
If Poland is the most “normal”, we’re fucked