Iran

Iran's monarchy ended in 1979 and is now a theocracy. The offices of head of state and head of government are now split. Iran's two head of state are the religious chief, the official with real power, and the president which is supervised by the religious chief. While Iran has presidential elections, they are rigged. One man hoped to changed the rigid Islamic rule and liberalize it a bit was cheated out of presidency. Mousavi hoped to beat incumbent President Ahmadinejad, and when Mousavi was ahead of him in polls, the regime did not allow this, closed the polls. The Supreme leader announced Ahmadinejad and charge that protesters were duped by US and British agents. This did not fool anyone, and the people took to social media to protest.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/chants-against-irans-supreme-leader-in-video-of-dissident-clerics-funeral/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Nigeria: almost a failed state not quite

    Nigeria is in a state of crisis. I fail to see how "most" Nigerians want democracy, if anything they want peace. Nigeria is plagued with violence from both sides of extremists.  The article that I found is about a bomb attack on a bus that killed 70 people. The commotions happened as commuters were about to enter the bus officials say. According to the article, this attack was planned by islamist militants that are determined to expand their area of operation. This islamist militant group, Boko Harem, has had other successful attacks around the country this year. The president of Nigeria went to the scene and vowed that the country will overcome insurgency. I don't know if this vow by the president of Nigeria will come true. In my opinion there is too much violence and its to deep rooted to ever get rid of or lower it.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27018751

No Taiwan for Social Progress Index

I never liked comparing countries in terms of poverty levels or how well a country does based on what one country feels is "up to standard" and all those rankings. When doing a research paper on migrant workers in China, my group realized that many of the workers would be grouped below poverty level. Yet, an important aspect to remember is that the poverty level in one country is not the same elsewhere. We made the mistake of comparing the United State's standard of living to that of China. As it turned out, many of the workers did relatively well and weren't considered "poor" by Chinese standards. A friend I went to school with in China lived in a small apartment with two rooms; one room belonged to the parents and the second to the host sister. My friend lived in what I called the closet or storage room. The apartment would be considered something only a broke college student could afford (it was really small). In China, this apartment was considered high class.
Going back to the Social Progress Index. This analysis does a good job when it comes to ranking a country, because it is based on what the country contributes to the people in three categories: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Well being, Opportunity. Taiwan was not part of this Social Progress Index, and I didn't feel like grouping it with China because they are too different in how they run their country and treat their citizens.

Brazil

The economic stabilization helped build Brazil's positive attitude towards democracy. however, when an economy worsens, authoritarian tendencies arise. The educated middle class Brazilians are "convinced democrats", but because many Brazilians are poor and barely scrapping by, they will support any who can supply then with food and necessities, democrats or not.  Brazil has an inflation problem and it will probably increase with the 2016 Olympics.


http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-07/brazil-economists-see-faster-inflation-and-slower-growth-in-2014.html