Compared to the evaluation of IVO Barometer for the 4th quarter-year of 2008, the overall mark remained unchanged in the 1st quarter-year of 2009. Despite this fact, in all surveyed areas the problematic trends from the previous period were registered, however, regress was not such excessive to enable the worsening of the overall rating.
Detailed trend evaluation in particular areas is displayed in sections Main findings in the Newsletter, No 1/2009.
The goal of IVO Barometer project is to evaluate, periodically after every quarter-year, the state of quality of democracy in Slovakia, in five key areas: democratic institutions and legal state; legislation; preservation and maintaining human and minority rights; independent media and public service media; foreign policy from the euro-integration and transatlantic point of view.
The rating/mark value of IVO Barometer is moving on the scale between 1,00 and 5,00 whereby mark 1,00 expresses the optimal state of quality of democracy according to the standards and comparative criteria applied in European Union and Council of Europe in the areas of stability of institutions, political democracy, human rights and freedoms. In particular fields the basic analyses of the trends are processed every three months by the panels of reputable experts from academic and research institutions in accordance with the elaborated methodology. IVO publicizes periodical evaluations for particular fields each quarter-year. In the end of the year, Institute for public questions intents to elaborate, on a basis of previous partial reports and ratings, an annual report and rating, which will be published in a book version. Considering the fact that it is a continuous long-term project, in the consecutive term it will be possible to evaluate the quality of democracy in Slovakia through the comparison of the trends in particular ratings.
